Israeli bombs prompt massive exodus of Palestinians from Gaza, flee south

Thousands of Palestinians sheltering at Gaza City’s main hospital have fled south after several reported strikes in and around the compound overnight.

Friday's groups joined a growing exodus of people escaping intense Israeli strikes in the north — including near other hospitals — as Gaza officials said the territory’s death toll surpassed 11,000.

The search for safety across besieged Gaza has grown desperate as Israel intensified its assault on the territory’s largest city.

Reem Asant, 50, described seeing bodies on the streets as he and others made their way out of Gaza City, trying to avoid shelling.

“We’re talking about children killed in a hospital,” shouted one man, Abu Yousef.

“Hundreds of women killed every day. Houses collapsing on the heads of civilians. … Where are human rights? Where is the United Nations? Where is the United States? Where is the International Criminal Court? Where is the entire world?”

The Israeli army claims without proof that Hamas’ military infrastructure is based amid Gaza City’s hospitals and neighbourhoods, and that it has set up its main command centre in and under the largest hospital, Shifa — claims Hamas and Shifa staff deny.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on Gaza since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7.

Reported strikes on or near at least four hospitals in northern Gaza overnight underscored the danger for tens of thousands more who had crowded into the facilities, believing they would be safe.

Battles around hospitals

Early Friday, at least three strikes over several hours hit the courtyard and the obstetrics department of Shifa Hospital, according to Ashraf al Qidra, spokesperson at the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

A video of the courtyard recorded the sound of incoming fire waking people in makeshift shelters, followed by shouts for an ambulance. In the blood-spattered courtyard, one man writhed, screaming on the ground, his leg apparently severed.

Al Qidra blamed the attack on Israel, while the Israeli army said one strike at Shifa was the result of a misfire by fighters targeting its troops nearby.

For weeks, tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians — reaching as many 60,000 this week, according to the Health Ministry — have been sheltering in the Shifa complex.

The overnight strikes triggered a mass exodus of the displaced. About 10 am local time (0800 GMT), large numbers packed up their belongings and began walking toward the south, five people who were among those who left told The Associated Press.

Al Qidra told Al Jazeera that more than 30,000 displaced people, medical workers and patients remain in the hospital.

Mainly those who could not walk or did not know where to go remained, said Wafaa abu Hajajj, a journalist who arrived in the south after leaving the hospital Friday.

“The strikes were hoping to scare people and it worked. … It became too much,” said 32-year-old Haneen Abu Awda, who had been at Shifa being treated for wounds from an earlier strike on his house.

At the same time, Shifa has been overwhelmed by thousands of wounded, even as it operates with minimal power and medical supplies.

The director of Shifa, Mohammed Abu Selmia, said Israel demanded the facility be evacuated, but he said there was nowhere for such a large number of patients to go.