Israel says 170 gunmen killed in Gaza hospital raid as UN chief urges ceasefire
- The Israeli military says it has questioned over 800 suspects and found ‘numerous weapons and terror infrastructure’
- UN chief Antonio Guterres has arrived in Egypt’s northern Sinai, where international relief for Gaza is delivered, to step up calls for a ceasefire
Israeli forces fighting in Gaza have killed more than 170 gunmen during their days-long raid at the Palestinian enclave’s main hospital, the military said on Saturday.
Israeli troops entered Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the early hours of Monday morning and have been combing through the sprawling complex, which the military says is connected to a tunnel network used as a base for Hamas and other Palestinian fighters.
“Thus far, the forces eliminated more than 170 terrorists in the area of the hospital, questioned over 800 suspects, and located numerous weapons and terror infrastructure,” the military said.
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More than 350 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants have so far been detained at the hospital, the largest number captured at the same time since the war began in October, the military said on Thursday.
Hamas and medical staff deny that the hospital is used for military purposes or to shelter fighters.
In recent days, Hamas spokespeople have said that the dead announced in previous Israeli statements were not fighters but patients and displaced people and have accused Israel of war crimes.
The Israeli military, which has lost two soldiers in combat at the hospital, says it is preventing harm to civilians, patients and medical staff there.
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His trip comes as Israel threatens to launch a major military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, just over the border from Egypt, despite international appeals against such an attack.
A majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are sheltering around Rafah.
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More than 32,000 people have been killed by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to local health authorities.
Israel launched the assault in response to an attack by Hamas in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
