Patients, staff and displaced people leave Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital after Israel issues 'evacuation' warning

Patients, staff and displaced people leave Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital after Israel issues 'evacuation' warning

Gaza (Web Desk): Palestinian Health officials said many patients, medical staff and those displaced by the ongoing war have left Gaza’s largest hospital, which was taken over by Israeli forces earlier in the week.

Palestinian officials and the Israeli military gave conflicting versions about what prompted the mass exodus from al-Shifa hospital as Palestinian Health officials said they received an evacuation order from the military on Saturday morning, while the military said it had offered safe passage to those hoping to leave.

Before the departure, several thousand people, including medical patients in serious condition, were trapped in al-Shifa in dire conditions.

Moreover, twenty-six people were martyred as well as 23 people with serious injuries, after an airstrike on a residential building in the region’s Hamad Town, in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis

Earlier Israel issued a fresh warning to Palestinians in the southern city of Khan Younis to move out of the line of fire and closer to humanitarian aid, in the latest indication that it plans to attack Hamas in south Gaza after subduing the north.

Such a move would compel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled south from the Israeli assault on Gaza City to relocate again, along with residents of Khan Younis, a city of more than 400,000, worsening a dire humanitarian crisis.

Israel dropped leaflets over Khan Younis telling people to evacuate to shelters, suggesting military operations there were imminent.

At least 12,000 people have been martyred, including almost 5000 children in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.