Palestinians who fled an ongoing Israeli raid in and around Gaza's main hospital described days of heavy fighting, mass arrests and forced marches past dead bodies in interviews Sunday.
Israel's military says it has killed over 170 militants and detained about 480 suspects in the raid on Shifa Hospital that began Monday, calling it a heavy blow to Hamas and other armed groups it says had regrouped in the compound.
The fighting also highlights the resilience of Palestinian armed groups in a heavily destroyed part of Gaza where Israeli troops have been forced to return after a similar raid in the earliest weeks of the war.
Kareem Ayman Hathat, who lived in a five-story building about 100 meters (yards) from the hospital, said he huddled in the kitchen for days while gunfire and explosions sometimes caused the building to shake.
Early Saturday, Israeli troops stormed the building and forced dozens of residents to leave. He said men were forced to strip to their underwear and four were detained. The rest were blindfolded and ordered to follow a tank south as blasts thundered around them.
“From time to time, the tank would fire a shell,” he told The Associated Press from another hospital where he has sought shelter. “It was to terrorize us.”
The head of Israel's southern command, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, has called the Shifa raid a “daring, tricky and most impressive operation," saying it will end “when the last terrorist is in our hands, alive or dead.”
Israeli jets on Sunday launched several strikes near the hospital.
Shifa Hospital had largely stopped functioning following the November raid. After claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center inside and beneath the hospital, Israeli forces exposed a single tunnel leading to a few underground rooms. They also said they found weapons in parts of the hospital.
