DISPUTED HOSPITAL EVACUATION ORDER
Qudra added that 180 patients and staff remained at Al Shifa. “We demand their evacuation. They don’t have any more electricity, food or water.
“The Israeli army shoots at the hospital and repeats over the loudspeaker that they must leave, threatening to bomb them,” he said.
Al Shifa hospital has seen extended Israeli special forces operations as part of Israel’s war against Gaza militants, and on Wednesday, troops escorted journalists to a tunnel shaft at the complex which they said was part of a vast underground network used by Hamas.
Instructions to evacuate the hospital were issued on Saturday, prompting an exodus of hundreds of patients and displaced, with Salmiya telling AFP last week that he had received the evacuation order from Israeli forces.
But the Israeli army said the evacuations were carried out at the “request” of Salmiya.
The military released an audio recording presented as a conversation between Salmiya and a senior Israeli officer in which the two men blame each other for the evacuation.
On Thursday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said it joined forces with the United Nations to evacuate a further 190 wounded and sick people, their companions and medical staff from Al Shifa to other hospitals in southern Gaza.
The evacuation took nearly 20 hours due to delays at the checkpoint separating northern and southern Gaza, it said on X, adding that three paramedics had been detained, two of whom were subsequently released.
The Hamas-run government in Gaza says nearly 15,000 people have been killed since the Israeli military campaign began, most of them women and children.
It started after Hamas gunmen poured across the border in an unprecedented attack on October 7. Israeli officials say about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and around 240 taken hostage.