Israel’s military withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital early yesterday after a two-week raid, in which it said it killed about 200 militants and detained hundreds more.
Palestinian residents said the troops left behind several bodies and a swath of destruction.
The military has described the raid on al-Shifa Hospital as one of the most successful of the nearly six-month war.
Photo: AFP
However, it came at a time of mounting frustration in Israel, with tens of thousands on Sunday protesting against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Protesters urged the government to reach a ceasefire deal to free dozens of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas militants and to hold early elections. It was the largest anti-government demonstration since the start of the war.
The fighting at al-Shifa showed that Hamas can still put up resistance even in one of Gaza’s hardest-hit areas.
Among those killed in the raid were senior Hamas operatives and other militants who had regrouped there after an earlier raid in November last year, the military said, adding that it had seized weapons and valuable intelligence.
Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group had established their main northern headquarters inside the hospital.
He blamed Hamas for the destruction, saying that some fighters had barricaded themselves inside hospital wards while others launched mortar rounds at the compound.
He said troops had arrested about 900 suspected militants during the raid, including more than 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, and seized more than US$3 million in different currencies, as well as weapons.
He denied that any civilians had been harmed by Israeli forces, saying the army had evacuated more than 200 of the estimated 300 to 350 patients, and delivered food, water and medical supplies to the rest.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid along with about 200 militants, the military said.
At least 21 patients have died since the raid began, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X late on Sunday.
He said more than 100 patients were still inside the compound, including four children and 28 critical patients.
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS