Hundred Of Patients Leave On Foot As Israel Orders Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital Evacuated

Israeli Forces ordered doctors, patients and displaced people at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital to evacuate the medical compound, forcing some to leave by gunpoint, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Columns of sick and injured, some of them amputees, displaced people, doctors and nurses, made their way towards the seafront

Doctors said the facility, which has been under siege by Israeli troops for several days, was now largely deserted hours after soldiers ordered people to leave on Saturday.

“But in a post on X, the Israeli Army Spokesperson denied giving any order, saying the “IDF responded to the request of the Director of Shifa Hospital to allow Gazan citizens who were sheltering in the hospital and who wish to evacuate from Shifa Hospital towards the humanitarian crossing in the Gaza Strip via a secure axis”.

Mohammed Zaqout, the Director-General of hospitals in Gaza, reiterated to Al Jazeera: “I categorically deny these false allegations [from the Israeli army] … I am telling you we were forced to leave by gunpoint.”

More than 7,000 people, including patients in critical condition and newborn babies fighting for their lives, were sheltered inside al-Shifa.

A doctor in the hospital told Al Jazeera that at around 9am local time (7:00 GMT), they received the order from the Israelis to leave in “one hour”, but that it was “impossible” to evacuate everyone as they did not have ambulances or transportation means to transfer patients.

The situation caused “a great state of panic and fear” in the hospital, Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed said, reporting from Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

The United Nations estimated 2,300 patients, staff and displaced Palestinians were sheltering at Al-Shifa before Israeli troops moved in on Wednesday.

ALJAZEERA