Al-Shifa Hospital (Arabic: مستشفى الشفاء Mustašfā š-Šifāʾ [musˈtaʃ.fa‿ʃ.ʃiˈfaːʔ]) is the largest medical complex and central hospital in the Gaza Strip, located in the neighborhood of northern Rimal in Gaza City. Originally a British Army barracks, the site was transformed into a healthcare facility, the Dar al-Shifa or "house of healing", by the government of Mandatory Palestine in 1946. The hospital was expanded during the Egyptian and later Israeli occupations during the 1980s. In the 21st-century, the hospital has been prominent during the Gaza–Israel conflict.
During the Gaza War (2008–2009), much of the media coverage came from correspondents reporting from the hospital. During the 2014 Gaza war, Amnesty International reported that Hamas was using abandoned areas of the hospital grounds for detaining and torturing alleged Palestinian collaborators. Norwegian doctors Erik Fosse and Mads Gilbert, who were working at the hospital, stated that they did not see any evidence of military activity at the hospital during the war.On 7 October 2023, the day of the 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas brought two hostages, one of them wounded, to the hospital. The hospital was raided on 15 November 2023 by Israeli forces, which reported finding some light munitions in the hospital, though some media analyses have found evidence Israel added weapons to the scene for the camera. The raid was widely criticized by governments, United Nations agencies and aid organisations, with the head of the World Health Organization calling it "totally unacceptable". Israel has been accused by several news outlets of waging a propaganda war regarding al-Shifa, and medical staff at al-Shifa have accused Israel of directly causing the deaths of civilians being treated at al-Shifa, including prematurely born babies. Later a shaft was found on the perimeter of the hospital, and various experts confirmed that it was similar to other militant tunnels. Multiple sources state that bunkers were built in the 1980s by Israel during the construction of the hospital while some sources report that the construction also included tunnels. A France24 investigation concluded that the images and videos of the tunnels published by the IDF were consistent with Hamas built tunnels.During the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Israel and the United States said that a vast complex existed under the hospital that was being used by Hamas as its "main operations base", which Hamas and hospital administrators denied. Following Israel's release of video evidence on 22 November, multiple news agencies concluded that the evidence did not demonstrate the use by Hamas of a command center. The New York Times also said the evidence did not show conclusive evidence of a vast network of tunnels, while Haaretz concluded that Hamas did use the hospital for military purposes. Amnesty International said on 23 November 2023 that "Amnesty International has so far not seen any credible evidence to support Israel’s claim that al-Shifa is housing a military command centre" and that "the
Israeli military has so far failed to provide credible evidence" for the allegation. The Washington Post concluded that the evidence presented by Israel falls short of corroborating its claims, finding, for example, that there was no evidence the tunnels could be accessed from the hospital or vice-versa. On January 2, 2024, U.S. intelligence doubled down on its claim that Hamas used the Al-Shifa Hospital as a command center and to hold Israeli hostages, but did not provide any evidence thereof.
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