「手を上げろ」　ガザ最大病院に突入のイスラエル軍

【ガザ市（パレスチナ自治区）ＡＦＰ＝時事】数十人でなだれ込んできたイスラエル軍兵士が、拡声器を使って「１６歳以上の者は手を上げろ」とアラビア語で叫んだ。顔を目出し帽で覆った兵士や、威嚇射撃する兵士もいた。（写真は資料写真）
　イスラエル軍は１５日、パレスチナ自治区ガザ地区最大のシファ病院に突入した。院内には患者や医療従事者、避難民など数千人が残っているとされる。
　数日前に同院内へ避難し、ＡＦＰと連絡を取り続けているジャーナリストによると、イスラエル兵は人々に「建物から中庭へ出て、降伏しろ」と命じた。
　イスラエル軍は、ガザ地区を実効支配するイスラム組織ハマスがシファ病院の地下を司令部として使い、武器も保管していると主張。病院への攻撃は「精密で標的を絞った」作戦だと発表した。
　イスラエル、パレスチナ双方の当局によると、ここ数日でイスラエル軍はガザ北部にあるシファ病院を包囲し、昼夜を問わず激しい攻撃を浴びせている。周辺も空爆されており、１０日には病院自体が砲撃を受け、１３人が死亡した。
　目撃情報によると、院内は凄惨（せいさん）な状況で、麻酔なしで医療処置が行われ、食料や水も乏しく、避難家族が廊下にあふれ、遺体の腐敗臭が充満している。
　前述のジャーナリストは、イスラエル兵が廊下を走るとあちこちの病棟から数百人の若者が出てきたと語った。兵士たちはハマスの戦闘員を探して部屋から部屋へ移動しながら、威嚇射撃を繰り返したという。
　■病院敷地内に戦車
　また広大な病院の敷地内には、数台の戦車が入ってきているという。
　イスラエル軍は声明で、作戦実施中に保育器、離乳食、医療品などを病院に届けたと発表。「これらの物資を必要とする人々に確実に届くよう、われわれの医療チームとアラビア語を話す兵士が現場にいる」と述べた。
　だが、ハマスが運営するガザ当局は、病院で戦闘員を捜索するイスラエル軍の行為は「戦争犯罪と人道に対する罪」に相当すると非難している。
　一方、米ホワイトハウスは、ハマスとパレスチナの別の武装組織「イスラム聖戦」がシファ病院の地下に作戦用の「指揮統制司令部」を設けたとするイスラエル軍の主張を米情報筋が裏付けたと発表した。
　しかしハマス側はこれらの疑惑を否定。ガザ地区は数週間にわたってイスラエル軍に包囲されており、電気も発電機用の燃料もないとして病院内の窮状を強調している。
　国連は病院内に少なくとも２３００人の患者、職員、避難民がいるが、戦闘が激しく脱出できない恐れがあると警告している。
　国連人道問題調整事務所（ＯＣＨＡ）はガザ保健当局のまとめで、１４日に同病院で患者４０人が死亡したと発表した。
　モハマド・アブサルミヤ院長は、これまでに計１７９人の遺体が敷地内の集団墓地に埋葬されたと述べている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/11/16-15:27）

Hours after Israeli troops launched a night-time raid on Gaza's biggest hospital, soldiers interrogated patients in the compound's courtyard while other Palestinians stood stripped to their underwear.
All men 16 years and above, raise your hands, a soldier shouted in accented Arabic through a loudspeaker at those sheltering inside Al-Shifa hospital, which has been at the centre of fierce urban combat for days.
Exit the building towards the courtyard and surrender, the soldier ordered, according to a journalist who visited the embattled hospital several days ago for interviews and was trapped inside because of the fighting outside.
About 1,000 male Palestinians, their hands above their heads, were soon led into the vast hospital courtyard, some of them stripped naked by Israeli soldiers checking them for weapons or explosives, the journalist told AFP.
Hours later, some 200 remained in their underwear, forced to stand beside tanks used in the military incursion into the medical facility.
The army labelled the raid a precise and targeted operation against Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched the deadly October 7 attacks on southern Israel.
Since their raid on the facility, the military is yet to produce any evidence to back their claim of Hamas running a command centre beneath the hospital.
Israel withdrew its troops and vehicles on Wednesday evening, the journalist told AFP, repositioning them outside the hospital walls.
Before entering the hospital, our forces encountered explosive devices and terrorist squads, and fighting commenced in which terrorists were killed, the military said of the battle preceding the raid.
Witnesses have described conditions inside the hospital as horrific, with medical procedures performed without anaesthetic, families with scant food or water living in corridors, and the stench of decomposing corpses filling the air.
As Israeli forces raced through the corridors, hundreds of young men emerged from different wards, including the maternity section, which was hit in a strike a few days ago, the journalist reported.
Soldiers fired warning shots as they moved from room to room looking for Hamas militants, he said, adding the troops were also searching women and children, some of whom were in tears.
- Tanks in hospital complex -
Hamas in its October 7 attack, the worst in Israel's history, killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 240 hostages back into Gaza, according to Israeli officials.
In Gaza, more than 11,300 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed in an intense Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion since, health officials in the Hamas-run territory have said.
In the hospital incursion, the journalist said Israeli troops entered the main emergency department and other wards.
The Israeli army, in a statement early Wednesday, said they were targeting Hamas in a specified area of the facility.
Soldiers were still questioning wounded people and their companions on Wednesday afternoon, as they moved between hospital departments, the journalist at Al-Shifa said.
The army said it had delivered incubators, baby food and medical supplies to the hospital, which AFP was not able to verify.
The journalist said soldiers were handing out drinking water to some of the displaced people who had taken shelter at the hospital during weeks of warfare.
Our medical teams and Arabic speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need, the army said.
Gaza's Hamas government accused the Israeli army of committing a war crime and crime against humanity.
Over the past few days Israel has encircled Al-Shifa in north Gaza, charging that tunnels under the facility were being used as hideouts by Hamas commanders.
The White House said that US intelligence sources corroborated Israel's claim that Hamas and another militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, had buried an operational command and control node under Al-Shifa.
Hamas has denied those charges and stressed the suffering inside the besieged facility that, like other hospitals, has been without electricity or fuel for generators amid the Israeli siege of the Palestinian territory.
The United Nations said earlier that at least 2,300 people -- patients, staff and displaced civilians -- were inside and may be unable to escape because of the fierce fighting.
Citing the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, UN humanitarian agency OCHA said 40 patients had died in Al-Shifa on Tuesday.
The hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya said that 179 bodies had been buried in a mass grave inside the complex.
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