THE ISRAELI MILITARY has said it has uncovered a tunnel under Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital that stretched 55-metres beneath the complex where troops have been conducting a major operation.

“IDF troops exposed a 55-meter-long terror tunnel 10 metres deep underneath the Shifa hospital complex,” which ran under the hospital and ended at a blast door, an army statement said.

Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, has become the focus of the six-week-old war that began 7 October when Gaza-based Hamas militants stormed across the militarised border to kill, according to Israeli officials, around 1,200 people and take roughly 240 hostages.

Israeli troops raided Al-Shifa Hospital earlier this week on suspicion that it was being used as a Hamas base.

Israel has been under pressure to prove its allegations that a Hamas command centres is concealed beneath the hospital, a claim denied by the group and medical staff.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) described the hospital as a “death zone”, with a mass grave at the entrance and 291 patients left inside with 25 health workers.

In a statement shortly before midnight last night, Irish time, the WHO said the situation in the hospital was “desperate”, and signs of shelling and gunfire were evident.

Yesterday, hundreds fled Al-Shifa Hospital on foot as loud explosions were heard around the complex. Columns of sick and injured were seen leaving with displaced people, doctors and nurses.

The WHO said 29 patients at the hospital with serious spinal injuries cannot move without medical assistance.

Israel has told Palestinians to move south for their safety, but deadly strikes continued there too.

Earlier today, it was reported that 31 premature babies were evacuated from the hospital. 

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the 31 “very sick” babies were moved in a joint operation with staff from the UN and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PCRS), which used six ambulances in the transfer.

© Agence France-Presse

Additional reporting from Jane Matthews