GAZA CITY (AP) – The Israeli military has withdrawn from Gaza’s main hospital after a two-week raid, saying it had killed some 200 militants and detained hundreds after days of close-quarters fighting.
Palestinians who returned to Shifa Hospital, once the largest medical center in the Gaza Strip, found a vast swath of devastation in the wake of the Israeli raid, with bodies inside and outside of the facility and its buildings heavily burned and damaged. Israel blamed Hamas for the destruction.
A second shipment of food aid arrived by sea on Monday in the latest test of a new maritime route from the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. One of the three vessels could be seen off the coast, and Cyprus’ Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said they had received permission to offload. The precise mechanism of delivery was not yet clear.
A third of Gaza’s residents are on the brink of famine. Aid deliveries via land crossings into Gaza have been impeded by Israeli military restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of public order, according to the U.N. and international aid groups.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 32,845 Palestinians, the territory’s Health Ministry says. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tally, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.
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