A look inside the Gaza hospital raided by Israeli Defense Forces

Amna Nawaz:

The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution this evening that calls for — quote — "urgent and extended" humanitarian pauses in the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The U.S., United Kingdom, and Russia abstained.

Meanwhile in Gaza, the focus is on the largest hospital there.

Geoff Bennett:

Israeli forces entered the Al Shifa Hospital and the compound that surrounds it at dawn this morning, with hundreds of patients and doctors still there, but in dire shape.

Israel and the U.S. say the hospital is used by Hamas as a command center, a charge the staff and Hamas both deny.

John Yang has the story.

John Yang:

Inside Gaza city's biggest hospital, clouds of dust and toxic smoke from Israeli shelling, as doctors and patients struggle to breathe.

The Shifa Hospital is no longer safe. In the intensive care unit, a doctor narrates the aftermath in this video released by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. Even the youngest are deprived of life support. Rows of critical care patients were moved to the corridor away from life-supporting machines.

The doctor is pumping oxygen manually, he said, as this little girl struggles to breathe. Israeli forces entered the Shifa Hospital compound at dawn in what the IDF have called a precise and targeted operation in one specific area.

In a statement, the Palestinian Mission to the United States called it a war crime and said Israeli soldiers terrorized civilians, ransacked rooms, destroyed equipment, and beat medical staff, whom they interrogated at gun point. Israel says Shifa is not just a hospital but also a Hamas command-and-control center, something Hamas and hospital officials deny.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, International Spokesperson, Israel Defense Forces:

We are inside the MRI center of the Shifa Hospital.

John Yang:

After searching for more than 12 hours of search, the IDF released this video as evidence showing a cache of weapons they said they found.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus:

If you follow me behind the MRI machine, I will show you what our troops exposed just minutes ago.

There is an AK-47. There are cartridges, ammo. There are grenades in here, of course, uniforms, and all of this was hidden very conveniently, secretly, behind the MRI machine. A laptop, we found it in the MRI room.

John Yang:

The IDF also claimed their search turned up technological assets belonging to Hamas.

Just hours before the raid, the United States said it has intelligence that Hamas uses hospitals, including Shifa, as military strongholds. But officials also said the United States did not license the raid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no place in Gaza is off-limits.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister (through interpreter):

They said that we would not reach the outskirts of Gaza City. We've arrived. They told us that we would not enter Shifa. We've entered. And in this spirit we say a simple thing. There is no place in Gaza that we will not reach.

John Yang:

Palestinian health officials say 650 patients and thousands of displaced civilians remain trapped inside the hospital grounds, including medical staff who chose to stay behind to care for them.

Dr. Shadi Issam Radi remained with his two children. His wife was killed three weeks ago in an Israeli airstrike.

Dr. Shadi Issam Radi, Al Shifa Hospital (through interpreter):

I have worked in the intensive care department for seven years. My wife was killed while I was working. I was obliged to bring the children with me and I am still working. Thank God for everything.

John Yang:

Elsewhere in Gaza, no end to death and destruction. In Khan Yunis in the south, this was a shelter for a family who had fled from the north. But for some of them, it became a tomb, at least one woman and two children reportedly killed. This baby survived.

At the only open crossing along the Gaza-Egypt border, a truck carrying the first load of fuel entered the strip. Expert said the roughly 6,000 gallons will do little to alleviate the shortages. And Israel said it will only supply it to U.N. aid efforts, not hospitals, for their now-silent generators.

Martin Griffiths, U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator: Aid needs to be reliable, on the day, on the next day, on the next week.

John Yang:

In Geneva today, the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, urged Israel to allow a continuous flow of aid and to open more crossings along the border.

Martin Griffiths:

We have the trucks. We need the fuel and we need the money to fund the delivery. And then we can do the job that we are there to do. Silence those guns long enough to give the people of Gaza a breather from the terrible, terrible things that have been put on them these last few weeks.

John Yang:

Aid desperately needed at medical facilities across Gaza, like Al-Aqsa. Today, doctors scrambled to treat the injured caught in the, crossfire of a war where hospitals have become battlegrounds.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm John Yang.