WHO visits Al-Shifa hospital, calls it ‘death zone’

Tel Aviv: World Health Organization (WHO) officials visiting Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital said the hospital has become a “death zone”. WHO and other UN agencies that visited the hospital said they were in the process of evacuating patients from there.

The Israeli military has said that Hamas activists must be expelled from the al-Shifa hospital complex. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say that the al-Shifa hospital complex is serving as a command center for Hamas and that an underground tunnel network operates from this hospital complex, although hospital officials and Gaza’s Health Ministry Has vehemently denied this. ,

Israeli forces also recovered the bodies of two female hostages near Al-Shifa Hospital, indicating that the hospital complex was used to hold hostages kidnapped from Israel on October 7.

It is noteworthy that the IDF has said that it has recovered numerous weapons and ammunition and military equipment from buildings inside and around the hospital.

More than 12,000 Palestinians lost their lives due to a ground offensive launched on 27 October in retaliation for the 7 October massacre and destruction. Many soldiers including senior officers from both sides were also killed.