IDF pulls out of Al-Shifa hospital: 200 militants killed

The Israeli Defence Forces are leaving the Palestinian Al-Shifa medical complex in the Gaza Strip following a military operation there.

According to Al Jazeera TV, Israeli troops are "completely withdrawing from the al-Shifa complex and its surroundings" after a military operation that lasted about two weeks.

According to the channel, buildings in the medical complex have been burned or rendered unusable, and the destruction's scale is extensive.

Dozens of bodies were found in the hospital compound and surrounding streets after the troops withdrew.

The Prime Minister of the Jewish state, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced at the press conference that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had eliminated more than 200 armed radicals during an operation at the Al-Shifa Medical Centre in the Gaza Strip.

"We killed over 200 terrorists in Al-Shifa," he said.

He said the Al-Shifa hospital had been turned into a "central Hamas terrorist headquarters".

Netanyahu described the actions of the IDF and the Shabak (Israel's General Security Service) in al-Shifa as "exemplary". The Prime Minister added that several hundred armed radicals were arrested in the area of the hospital during the operation.

The Israeli army began what it called 'targeted operations' on the grounds of the Al-Shifa medical centre two weeks ago. The military says it is 'preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and equipment'. The last time the IDF raided the Al-Shifa compound was in mid-November 2023.