Israel-Hamas Conflict: The focus of Israel's ground offensive in Gaza has been centered towards the enclave's biggest hospital -- Al-Shifa Hospital-- where the Jewish country claims to have found Hamas tunnels. Now, amid the raging operation, Israel has accused the Hamas militants of killing an Israeli soldier inside the hospital and said they were holding two foreign hostages there, reported Reuters.
Israel stepped up its action by hitting the AL-Shifa hospital after it claimed to have found Hama's tunnels beneath the structure. According to Reuters, Al Shifa Hospital has been evacuating patients and staff since Israeli soldiers swept in last week. Israel has been looking for around 240 hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza after the Oct 7 surprise assault that began the war.
In a post on X, the Israeli Defence Forces said, "On November 9, CPL Noa Marciano was injured from an IAF strike and the terrorist holding her hostage was neutralized. Following a preliminary pathological report, it was revealed that Noa’s injury was not life-threatening. Noa was murdered by a Hamas terrorist in the Shifa Hospital. The IDF will continue to support the Marciano family and operate in every way possible to return the hostages home."
"EXPOSED: This is documentation from Shifa Hospital from the day of the massacre, October 7, 2023, between the hours of 10:42 a.m and 11:01 a.m. in which hostages, a Nepalese civilian and a Thai civilian, were abducted from Israeli territory are seen surrounded by armed Hamas terrorists. One of the hostages is injured and is being carried on a hospital bed and the other is walking," IDF said.
"These findings prove that the Hamas terrorist organization used the Shifa Hospital complex on the day of the October 7 Massacre as terrorist infrastructure," IDF added.
Israel claimed that one of these was a 19-year-old Israeli army conscript, Noa Marciano, whose body was found near the hospital last week. However, Hamas denied the charges and said she was killed in an Israeli air strike. The militant group also issued a video that appeared to show her corpse, unmarked except for a head wound.
The Israeli forces said a forensic examination found she had sustained non-life-threatening injuries from such a strike. "According to intelligence information - solid intelligence information - Noa was taken by Hamas terrorists inside the walls of Shifa hospital. There, she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist," chief spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, as quoted by Reuters.
He added that Hamas gunmen took a Nepalese and a Thai, among foreign workers kidnapped in the Oct 7 raid, to Shifa hospital. However, Hagari did not name the two hostages.
This comes as agencies express concern over the threat to life of patients, especially babies, inside the hospital as tension continues to grip the region. On Sunday, 31 preterm newborns were successfully relocated from Gaza's main hospital to another in the south to be transferred to Egypt, according to health authorities, news agency AP reported.
The situation of the infants at Shifa Hospital drew worldwide attention after photographs showing physicians attempting to keep them warm surfaced on social media. As Israeli soldiers fought Palestinian terrorists outside the hospital, a power outage knocked down incubators and other equipment, and food, water, and medical supplies ran short.
The World Health Organization's chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the "very sick" newborns, as well as six health professionals and ten staff family members, had been evacuated.