A look at Gaza hospitals caught in the middle of ruthless Israeli onslaught

Israeli forces have raided the biggest medical complex, Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital, one of a number of facilities that have been caught up in the worst of the fighting.

Global concern flared on Wednesday over the war and the thousands of wounded and displaced civilians inside the hospital, which has been deprived of electricity, generator fuel and essential medical supplies.

Israel charges Hamas with hiding military sites in tunnels below Al Shifa and other sites, and using the civilians trapped there as "human shields", claims Hamas denies.

Here is a look at five of the major hospitals in the battle zone of Gaza.

The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital

The hospital for cancer patients in Gaza was severely damaged by Israeli air strikes earlier this month.

"A state of panic afflicts cancer patients and medical staff as a result of the heavy Israeli bombardment of the only Turkish Friendship Hospital for cancer patients in Gaza and the infliction of severe damage to it as a result of the Israeli occupation repeatedly targeting its surroundings," Dr Subhi Skaik, the director general of the hospital, had said on Facebook.

The Turkish government funded the construction of the hospital from 2011-2017, which is the largest hospital in Palestine with an area of 34,800 square meters comprising six floors and with a capacity of 180 beds.

Al Shifa Hospital

Following extensive attacks around the hospital, the Israeli army has stormed Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City overnight.

Israeli army blindfolded and detained a number of people at Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital after stripping them and taking them to an unknown location, a medical source tells Anadolu.

Israeli assaults in recent days had forced the hospital to bury dead patients in a "mass grave", said the director of Al Shifa, located in Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood.

According to the Palestinian government in Gaza, the hospital was built in 1946 during the British Mandate and has been extended since.

The UN World Health Organisation has said about 400 medical staff and caregivers worked there and 3,000 civilians had taken refuge from the war.

The Gaza government's deputy health minister told AFP on Sunday that an Israeli airstrike had "completely destroyed" the cardiac ward building.

Three nurses have been killed, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Sunday.

"Essential infrastructure" including water tanks, maternity ward equipment and the medical oxygen storage centre had also been damaged, it said Sunday.

An ambulance leaving the hospital was hit by an Israeli strike that killed 15 people in early November.

Al Quds Hospital

Gaza City's Al Quds Hospital - with just 100 beds but recently sheltering thousands of displaced - was evacuated on Tuesday, said the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

"This comes after more than 10 days of siege, during which medical and humanitarian supplies were prevented from reaching the hospital," it said.

Opened in the early 2000s, the hospital had "become a threat to the lives of everyone inside" due to the war, complete power outage and the depletion of water and food.

Health staff and patients were taken to southern Gaza.

The Israeli army Monday reported firefights outside the hospital in which it said "21 terrorists" died.

OCHA earlier said that up to 14,000 people had taken refuge within the hospital complex since the start of the war.

This hospital was previously hit by Israeli airstrikes in the war of late 2008 to January 2009. Its emergency department and other wards were rebuilt with the help of French funding.

Indonesian Hospital

Opened in 2015, the Indonesian Hospital was financed by Jakarta and is located in Gaza's largest refugee camp, Jabalia.

It has a normal capacity of 110 beds, its director Atef al Kahlot has said in media reports.

According to the government in Gaza, at least 30 people were killed in the hospital by Israeli bombing.

Al Rantisi Hospital

Al Rantisi children's hospital is close to Al Shifa in western Gaza City.

In 2019, it was equipped with the territory's only paediatric oncology department, partly funded by a US humanitarian organisation.

The Israeli army entered the hospital on Monday and claimed it had discovered an abandoned "Hamas command and control centre" in the basement.

The army released a video showing weapons and what it described as other evidence Hamas had held hostages there after abducting some 240 people on October 7. Hamas denounced the footage as staged.

On Saturday, the Israeli army said it had killed Ahmed Siam, "a Hamas commander" who it said had been "holding around 1,000 Gaza residents hostage at Al Rantisi hospital".

The military claimed on Monday to have evacuated its patients "to a safer hospital".

The director of all Gaza hospitals, Mohammed Zaqut, charged that the army had carried out "forced evacuations" of two paediatric hospitals, Al Rantisi and nearby Al Nasr, and left patients "on the streets without care".