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Photo:
Scene. Published by IMEMC News

Staff Sergeant Lior Raviv. Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit Published by Haaretz and The Times of Israel
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by IMEMC News
Mar 23, 2024

On Saturday, day 169 of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation forces bombed the northern part of Rafah, and shelled the northern and central Gaza Strip with tanks.

According to local sources, the Israeli occupation forces shelled artillery northwest of Beit Hanoun and the vicinity of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, and north of Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops bombed Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza on Saturday morning.

A number of Palestinian family members, including children, were killed and others were wounded, at dawn on Saturday, in an Israeli raid on the north of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. According to local sources, Israeli warplanes raided a two-storey house in Mirage area, north of Rafah, killing five civilians and wounding others.

In the same context, Israeli artillery shelled the town of Al-Qarara, north of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have killed 32,070 Palestinians in Gaza in the last 5 months. Additionally, Israeli troops injured over 74,298 Palestinians in Gaza. According to the latest reports, Israeli troops killed 82 Palestinians and 110 injuries in just the past 24 hours.

The five months of bombardment and displacement has led to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and massive destruction of infrastructure.

The Israeli military is continuing its siege of the al-Shifa Hospital, in central Gaza, for the sixth day. Israeli forces kidnapped most of the medical staff and electricity cutoff resulted
in many deaths in the intensive care unit.

According to a report by Mondoweiss.net, Israel threatened to blow up the hospital if those who are still inside do not surrender or evacuate. The Israeli military has already completely destroyed the surgical department of the hospital, where tens of thousands of wounded Palestinians have had their lives saved over the past five months, thanks to the tireless surgeons working day and night there. The Israeli military released a photo collage of claimed “terrorists” who they claimed they had captured in the hospital – but the list was shown to contain 58 duplicate photos, while most of the remainder were men who had previously been killed, were already imprisoned by Israel, or were out of Gaza.

According to Mondoweiss, “The siege on al-Shifa comes in the context of Israel’s attempt to target civil employees and members of the police in Gaza who were based in al-Shifa, in an attempt to sow civil unrest and cause a breakdown in social order in the north. Claiming these civil employees to be “top Hamas operatives,” Israel assassinated the Director of the Operations of the Gaza Police, Faiq Mabhouh, who was an instrumental figure in successfully coordinating the delivery of humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in cooperation with international organizations, local tribes, and UNRWA. In light of the widespread compliance of the populace with the directives of Gaza’s civil employees, Israel has laid siege of al-Shifa where many of them are based, claiming them to be armed Hamas fighters.”

The Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a statement that Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were “barricading themselves inside of the emergency room.” But medical workers on the ground have challenged this claim as an outright lie.

Mondoweiss reported that the Israeli military said they are “evacuating” around 220 patients to another location — but given that there is no coordination between the Israeli military and international bodies, evacuating people is incredibly dangerous.

According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a survivor who asked to be identified only as “M.K.” confirmed that Israeli soldiers repeatedly took prisoners into the hospital’s morgue area, that gunshots were then heard, and that the soldiers left without the prisoners. “The soldiers detained me and handcuffed me in the hospital courtyard; I was left undressed for more than nine hours,” M.K. stated.

“About four times during that period, I saw soldiers lead groups of detainees—[always] at least three people and [never] more than 10—into the hospital buildings, particularly the morgue building where bodies had previously been kept,” added M.K. “Gunshots were heard, with the soldiers then leaving the area to bring another group there.”

Another witness, who preferred to remain completely anonymous due to safety concerns, and who was able to leave Al-Shifa Medical Complex recently, confirmed to the Euro-Med Monitor team that he witnessed Israeli forces taking eight or 10 Palestinian civilians at a time towards the morgue area. He then heard heavy gunfire, and the Israeli forces later left without the civilians.

Israeli troops killed the police chief in Gaza city in charge of coordinating humanitarian affairs with UN agencies. The situation of the half a million people who remain in Gaza city is getting worse daily. Here is a graphic (CAUTION) example of one of hundreds of massacres committed by Israeli forces:
https://freepalestinemovement.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Jabalia-girls-school-massacre-240318.mp40

The daily flood of videos and images continues. Here is the execution of four unarmed civilians documented by an Israeli drone image (the drone was shot down by Palestinian resistance)
https://twitter.com/luigidaniele10/status/1770950017987088436

Here is testimony of a survivor who was buried alive under rubble:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-on-gaza-buried-alive-beneath-rubble-awoke-graveyard

In the US, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner called for the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip, saying that Gaza’s “waterfront property could be very valuable.”
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IDF Names Israeli Soldier Killed in Combat at Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital

Staff Sergeant Lior Raviv was killed Saturday near Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, and is survived by his parents and three siblings. His fellow soldiers described him as an outstanding, moral, and humble soldier

by Yaniv Kubovich and Ofer Aderet for Haaretz
Mar 24, 2024 5:19 pm IST

Staff Sergeant Lior Raviv, a soldier in the Israel Defense Force's Nahal Brigade, was killed Saturday during combat in the area of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Raviv, 21-years-old from Rishon Letzion, is survived by his parents Doron and Sarit-Saya, and his siblings Hila, Tal, and Yael.

Raviv's fellow soldiers said that he was an outstanding, moral, and humble soldier, and that he expressed his desire to serve his country through meaningful military service.

Raviv was laid to rest in the military cemetery in the central Israeli city of Rishon Letzion.
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IDF: Soldier killed amid raid at Gaza’s Shifa hospital; 480 terror operatives nabbed

Military announces death of Sgt. First Class Lior Raviv, 21, says more than half of those detained so far at medical center confirmed as members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad

by By EMANUEL FABIAN, FOLLOW
TOI STAFF and AP
24 March 2024, 2:44 pm


The Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday the death of a soldier killed during an ongoing raid against Hamas at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, where the military said it has so far identified and detained hundreds of confirmed terror group members hiding within the medical facility.

Sgt. First Class Lior Raviv was killed Saturday during the operation targeting Hamas terrorists at Shifa, the IDF said.

Raviv, 21, of the Nahal Brigade’s 932nd Battalion, was from the central city of Rishon Lezion.

. . .

In a statement, Raviv’s battalion said that he was a soldier “of the first order, ethical, modest and excellent in everything he did.”

The IDF’s nearly weeklong operation at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital is ongoing, with the military saying that among some 800 suspects detained by troops so far, 480 of them have been confirmed to be members of the Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups.

Troops also located infrastructure and caches of weapons belonging to terror groups over the past day, the IDF said.

Kareem Ayman Hathat, who lived in a five-story building about 100 meters from the hospital, told The Associated Press he huddled in the kitchen for days while gunfire and explosions sometimes caused the building to shake.

He said Israeli troops stormed the building early Saturday and forced dozens of residents to leave. He added that men were forced to strip to their underwear and four were detained. The rest were allegedly blindfolded and ordered to follow a tank south as blasts thundered around them.

“From time to time, the tank would fire a shell,” Hathat told The Associated Press from another hospital where he has sought shelter. “It was to terrorize us,” he alleged.

Jameel al-Ayoubi, among thousands of people sheltering at Shifa when the current raid began, said in a phone interview that tanks and armored bulldozers had plowed into the hospital courtyard, crushing ambulances and civilian vehicles. He said he saw tanks driving over at least four bodies of people killed early in the raid.

Abed Radwan, who lived about 200 meters from the hospital, told The Associated Press that Israeli forces stormed all area buildings, detaining several people and forcing the rest to march south. As he walked, he said he saw bodies in the streets and several flattened homes.

“They left nothing intact,” he added, speaking from a relative’s house in central Gaza.

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.”

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of embedding itself among the civilian population in Gaza, including using hospitals and medical centers as part of its military operations. The IDF has provided evidence it says backs up the claims and that would make Israeli raids on hospitals legitimate under international law.

Meanwhile, Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck some 65 targets in northern and central Gaza over the previous day, which the IDF said was part of support for maneuvering ground forces. The targets, according to the IDF update on operations in Gaza, included an attack tunnel, buildings used by Hamas where terror operatives were gathered and other infrastructure.

A strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis targeted a site used as a staging ground where several operatives were gathered, the IDF said, while a building in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun, which was a threat to troops, was targeted by another aircraft.

In central Gaza, the IDF said troops of the Nahal Brigade killed several Hamas gunmen over the past 24 hours, including with sniper fire.

Nahal troops also raided a drone manufacturing lab in central Gaza, where the IDF said soldiers killed several gunmen.

In southern Gaza, the 7th Armored Brigade killed several gunmen with sniper fire, combat engineers destroyed a rocket launcher, and an aircraft struck infrastructure belonging to a terror group.

The IDF and Shin Bet security agency said the military also launched a new offensive against Hamas in the Al-Amal neighborhood of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis overnight.

The raid, led by the 98th Division, is aimed at “continuing dismantling the terror infrastructure and eliminating terrorists in the area,” the IDF said.

As the operation began, Israeli fighter jets carried out strikes against some 40 Hamas targets in the area, including buildings used by the terror group, tunnels, and additional infrastructure. The division’s Commando Brigade, Givati Infantry Brigade, and 7th Armored Brigade then encircled Al-Amal, where they are currently battling Hamas gunmen.

The IDF previously operated in the al-Amal area last month.

The military also provided updates on its ongoing operation against Hamas in southern Gaza’s al-Qarara, close to Khan Younis, where troops have targeted sites belonging to the terror group near the border with Israel.

The IDF said troops located and destroyed caches of weapons and several sites belonging to Hamas, killed numerous gunmen with tank shelling, and “neutralized the threat adjacent to the [border] fence.”

During the raid, a Hamas weapons depot with a tunnel shaft beneath it was targeted in a helicopter strike.

Ahead of the operation, the IDF said the Air Force struck several sites and Hamas operatives who were gathered at hideout apartments and near troops in the al-Qarara area.

The Hamas-run health ministry said Sunday that at least 32,226 Palestinians have been killed and 74,518 have been wounded in Gaza since October 7, an unverified figure which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says said it has killed more than 13,000 Hamas members in Gaza fighting.

Israel launched its war against Hamas after the terror group’s devastating attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which it killed close to 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 253 hostage, half of whom remain in the Strip.

The war has devastated most areas in Gaza creating a rapidly growing humanitarian crisis as aid deliveries struggle to supply the coastal enclave’s over two million residents. Indirect talks for a temporary ceasefire that would include the release of hostages are ongoing in Doha, Qatar, with the participation of local, Egyptian and US mediators, but so far have not produced an agreement.
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IDF: Hamas gunmen are ‘destroying’ Shifa, firing from emergency room, maternity ward

Israel rejects responsibility as terror group claims 13 patients have died because of IDF raid; Hamas admits key operatives killed, nabbed at hospital; 8 rockets fired at Ashdod

By EMANUEL FABIAN, FOLLOW
AGENCIES and TOI STAFF
Today [Mar 25, 2024}, 4:18 pm

The Israel Defense Forces on Monday accused Hamas gunmen of firing at troops from Shifa Hospital’s emergency room, maternity and burn wards, as the terror group claimed patients were dying due to the ongoing military operation in the facility.

“Right now, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists are barricading themselves inside Shifa hospital wards. Hamas is destroying Shifa Hospital,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in an English-language video statement. “Hamas is firing from inside the Shifa emergency room and maternity ward and throwing explosive devices from the Shifa burn ward. Terrorists hiding around the hospital fired mortars at our forces, causing extensive damage to the hospital buildings.”

The IDF said the number of confirmed members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad captured by troops at the Gaza City medical center had risen to 500, out of over 800 suspects arrested since the raid began last week.

Continue reading at Times of Israel News Source Link published Mar 25, 2024, Day 171, here

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