US to press Israel on bodies found at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, White House says

‘It is deeply concerning if it’s true, we’re going to be reaching out to the Israeli government to get more information,’ the White House

Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported earlier that ‘dozens of bodies, some of them decomposed’ had been found around the hospital

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Palestinians inspect the damage at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from the area on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:42am, 2 Apr 2024

The White House will demand more information from Israel after “deeply concerning” reports on Monday of bodies found strewn at Gaza’s largest hospital complex as Israeli forces pulled out after an intensive military operation there.

“It is deeply concerning if it’s true, we’re going to be reaching out to the Israeli government to get more information,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in Washington.

She spoke after the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported “dozens of bodies, some of them decomposed” had been found around the hospital, while doctors and civilians at the damaged complex told Agence France-Presse at least 20 bodies had been found, some of which appeared to have been driven over by military vehicles.

Palestinians inspect the damage at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza on Monday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Further raising regional tensions during the Gaza war, Israeli air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Syria, Damascus said, as Iranian state television reported a Revolutionary Guards commander among the dead.

Over the past two weeks, the Israeli army carried out what it labelled “precise operational activity” at the al-Shifa complex, before declaring on Monday that the forces had withdrawn.

Israel said it had battled Palestinian militants hiding inside Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, killing at least 200 of them and recovering large stockpiles of weapons, explosives and cash.

A spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Monday that Israeli forces killed about 300 people in and around the hospital over the two-week operation.