Interspersed with the echo of blasts and the hum of surveillance drones, an Israeli officer's voice was broadcast over a loudspeaker on the morning of Thursday, March 21: "Leave the building. We warned you." The army then threatened to detonate the building.

The moment was filmed by a woman taking refuge in a wing of the Al Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the Palestinian territory, which the Israeli army has once again besieged. "They arrested our men. We're stuck here," she said in the video, filming dozens of women and children seated in the building's corridors.

Thirteen patients are reported to have died since the start of the hospital siege on Monday, according to the Hamas-run health services. Among them were four people who were placed on respirators in the intensive care unit after the electricity was cut off.

Israeli forces say they have since evacuated the thousands of people sheltering inside. This information has not been verified by the local media, who are afraid to venture into the area, nor by the Civil Defence and Red Crescent, who say they are unable to respond to calls for help from residents of the bombed-out city center and Al-Shati district. Since the start of this new operation launched at night, the area has been sealed off. The Israeli army denies obstructing the arrival of emergency services.

On Tuesday, Ezz Lulu, a fifth-year medical student – who cannot be reached since then – appealed for help: "We've been warned that anyone venturing outside will be targeted by snipers. We can't get out to rescue the victims in the courtyard. Families who tried to evacuate the hospital have been targeted. There are casualties. We're under siege. No water or electricity. They've literally cut us off from the outside world."

Over 140 Palestinian fighters were killed in four days of fighting in and around the hospital, and 600 "terrorists" were apprehended, according to the army. Israeli forces had launched a raid, backed by tanks and aerial bombardment, against the hospital on Monday, allegedly targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders. The operation was still underway on Friday morning.

"Several weapons and intelligence documents contributing to the ongoing battle were discovered during searches of the hospital," the army told Le Monde, detailing the identities of the Palestinian faction heads it says it arrested on the spot. "Husem Salama, head of intelligence and head of the Gaza brigade's observation team, and his brother, Wassam Salama, head of propaganda in the Islamic Jihad's Gaza division; Omar Azida, head of the Nablus committee and responsible for Hamas's terrorist activity in the region; Mahmoud Kwasma, who planned and financed the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014; and Hamdallah Hassan Ali, who encouraged terrorist activity in Judea-Samaria [the biblical name used by Israel to refer to the West Bank] in recent years."

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