Al Shifa Hospital has become much more than just a hospital during this war.
It is Gaza’s biggest hospital, a sprawling complex of 22 acres, housing emergency and neonatal facilities as well as specialist units.
But after Israel’s invasion of Gaza it has also become a refugee camp where thousands have sought sanctuary and shelter in its courtyards, corridors and wards from Israel’s unprecedented bombardment of Gaza.
More than that it has become a place that is symbolic of Palestinian resilience where doctors have performed heroically, saving lives in the most difficult of conditions.
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Dwindling fuel supplies have led to incubators being switched off, say officials there, and the deaths of a number of newborns.
The hospital is also becoming an outdoor morgue. Bodies have been piling up because of their sheer number and the lack of power to refrigerate them.
Israelis claim these reports cannot be trusted because Hamas controls the hospital’s staff. They almost certainly cannot speak entirely freely and when Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 it fired hundreds of staff affiliated with the more moderate Palestinian Fatah faction.
Premature babies born at al Shifa Hospital
Smoke rises over al Shifa Hospital
But what isn’t in doubt is the enormous pressure the hospital has been operating under and the extraordinary courage of its doctors and nurses. They have been operating against the odds as the war has closed in around them.
But al Shifa has a dark side, says Israel, and that claim has been backed up by US intelligence. Both claim the hospital is used by Hamas as a military headquarters in what would be a clear violation of the laws of war.
Israel, which has now carried out a targeted raid on al Shifa, claims there is a vast tunnel network under the hospital extending out across the Gaza Strip. It has produced diagrams of what it calls a subterranean terror complex. It says it believes hostages may be being held under the hospital and weapons arsenals and command centres are down there too.
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