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Israeli troops leaving al-Shifa hospital after two-week siege — Al Jazeera

Israel is withdrawing all of its troops from the hospital and the surrounding area, completing a two-week siege, the report said

DUBAI, April 1. /TASS/. Israel Defense Forces are leaving the al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip after a military operation there, Al Jazeera television reported.

Israel is withdrawing all of its troops from the hospital and the surrounding area, completing a two-week siege, the report said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a March 31 news conference that the military had eliminated more than 200 armed radicals during an operation at the hospital, which began on March 18. According to the prime minister, Hamas turned the hospital into a terrorist headquarters. The IDF said that its soldiers were acting carefully, hurting no civilians, patients or doctors and damaging no medical equipment. However, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 21 patients had died in the hospital since March 18.

The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking more than 200 hostages, including children, women and elderly people. Hamas cast the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israel declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and started striking the enclave and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.