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Today's Paper | March 07, 2026

Updated 01 Apr, 2024 06:25pm

Decomposing, trampled bodies found in wake of Israel withdrawal from Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital: health ministry

Israeli forces have pulled out of Gaza’s largest hospital complex after an intensive two-week military operation, leaving behind charred buildings and bodies strewn at the sprawling complex.

The Gaza health ministry has said that, after heavy Israeli air strikes and tank fire, “the scale of the destruction inside the complex and the buildings around it is very large.

“Dozens of bodies, some of them decomposed, have been recovered from in and around the Al-Shifa medical complex,” it said, adding that the hospital was now “completely out of service”.

Several doctors and civilians at the damaged complex told AFP that at least 20 bodies had been found, some of which appeared to have been driven over by military vehicles.

Several were found close to the west entrance to the complex, which the Israeli army used during its departure from the hospital grounds.

“Bodies … The tanks went over them. Destruction. Children. Innocents.Unarmed civilians. They (soldiers) went over them,” one witness said, asking not to be named.

An AFP correspondent saw one badly decomposed body bearing tyre marks, although it was not known when it was driven over.

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