Heavy fighting rages near Gaza’s biggest hospital as Israel raids it for second day

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Explosions and shootings shook the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital and surrounding neighborhoods as Israeli forces stormed through the facility for a second day Tuesday. The military said it had killed 50 Hamas terrorists in the hospital.

The raid was a new blow to the Shifa medical complex, which had only partially resumed operations after a destructive Israeli raid in November.

Thousands of Palestinian patients, medical staff and displaced people were trapped inside the sprawling complex Tuesday, as heavy fighting between troops and Hamas terrorists raged in nearby districts.

The Israeli military said it raided Shifa early Monday because Hamas terrorists had grouped in the hospital and were directing attacks from inside.

The Hamas media office claimed all those killed in the assault were civilians.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza vowing to destroy Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel.

The mayhem in the north came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his determination to invade Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah — one of the last major towns not targeted by a ground assault.

A day earlier, in their first phone call in a month, President Joe Biden urged Netanyahu not to carry out a Rafah operation, urging “an alternative approach” to more precisely target Hamas terrorists there.

Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss Rafah with Biden administration officials.

But on Tuesday, he told a parliamentary committee that while he would listen to U.S. proposals “out of respect” to Biden, “we are determined to complete the elimination of these (Hamas) battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion.”

The army last raided Shifa Hospital in November after claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center within and beneath the facility. The military revealed a tunnel leading to some underground rooms, as well as weapons it said were found inside the hospital.

The raid came before dawn Monday when tanks surrounded the facility and troops stormed into multiple buildings.

The military on Tuesday said two of its soldiers had been killed in the operation. It said troops on Monday killed Faiq Mabhouh, a senior officer in Gaza’s police force, which is under the Hamas-led government but distinct from the terrorist group’s armed fighting wing. The military said he was hiding in Shifa with weapons.

The raid prompted heavy fighting for blocks around Shifa. Hamas’ military wing said it struck two Israeli armored vehicles and a group of soldiers with rockets in the vicinity of the hospital.

Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack into southern Israel that triggered the war and took another 250 people hostage. Hamas terrorists are still believed to be holding about 100 captives, as well as the remains of 30 others, after most of the rest were freed during a cease-fire last year.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said Monday that at least 31,726 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.

Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian facilities to shield its fighters, and the Israeli military has raided several hospitals since the start of the war.