Gaza hospital in ruins after Israeli raid

GAZA, Apr 01 (BBC/AP): Israel's military says it has pulled out of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City after a two-week raid that left most of the major medical complex in ruins.
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said dozens of bodies have been found and locals said nearby areas were razed. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops had killed and detained hundreds of "terrorists" and found weapons and intelligence "throughout the hospital".
The IDF said it raided al-Shifa because Hamas had regrouped there. The two-week operation saw intense fighting and Israeli air strikes in nearby buildings and the surrounding area.
Wards were attacked because Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives were using them as a base, the IDF said, accusing Hamas fighters of fighting inside medical departments, setting off explosives and burning hospital buildings.
Photos showed that al-Shifa's main surgery building, which housed the intensive care unit, and the neighbouring building where the emergency, general surgery and orthopaedics departments were located had been destroyed.
Dozens of bodies, some decomposed, had been found in and around the medical complex which was now "completely out of service", the health ministry said. A doctor told AFP news agency more than 20 bodies had been recovered, some crushed by withdrawing vehicles.
On Sunday Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO), said 21 patients had died since al-Shifa "came under siege". Patients had been moved multiple times and more than 100 had been held in an "inadequate building" in the compound lacking support and medical care, he said.
Patient Barra al-Shawish told Reuters news agency that the Israeli troops had allowed in a "very small amount of food". "No treatment, no medicine, nothing and bombing for 24 hours that didn't stop and immense destruction in the hospital," he said.
Some of the patients were being moved to the al-Ahli hospital, a medic at al-Shifa told Reuters. The IDF statement said troops had "completed precise operational activity in the area of al-Shifa hospital and exited the area of the hospital". During the raid the IDF was "preventing harm to civilians, patients, and medical teams", it added.
On Sunday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said al-Shifa had become "a terrorist lair" and that more than 200 members of Palestinian armed groups, including senior figures, had been killed, with others surrendering.
Some 900 people were detained in and around al-Shifa, Israel says, with more than 500 of them subsequently found to be members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Israelis stage largest protest
since war began
Tens of thousands of Israelis thronged central Jerusalem on Sunday in the largest anti-government protest since the country went to war in October. Protesters urged the government to reach a cease-fire deal to free dozens of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas militants and to hold early elections.
Israeli society was broadly united immediately after Oct. 7, when Hamas killed some 1,200 people during a cross-border attack and took 250 others hostage. Nearly six months of conflict have renewed divisions over the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though the country remains largely in favor of the war.
Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring all the hostages home, yet those goals have been elusive. While Hamas has suffered heavy losses, it remains intact.
Roughly half the hostages in Gaza were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November. But attempts by international mediators to bring home the remaining hostages have failed. Talks resumed on Sunday with no signs that a breakthrough was imminent.
Hostages' families believe time is running out, and they are getting more vocal about their displeasure with Netanyahu.