Jason Burke writes:

The latest raid on al-Shifa hospital reveals that the Israeli military’s hold on the areas of Gaza supposedly cleared of Hamas militants is considerably more tenuous than the country’s political leaders have claimed – and suggests the region’s military superpower is facing its own “forever war” in the territory with enormous costs for everyone involved, particularly civilians.

The fighting around the Shifa hospital and its eventual seizure was the climactic moment of the first phase of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, launched last year after Hamas killed 1,200 and captured 250 people, mostly civilians, in a surprise raid on 7 October. There was bitter argument over whether the hospital’s buildings and basements had been used by Hamas as a covert command centre, as Israel claimed, but none over the strength of Israel’s control of the site when its soldiers moved in on 15 November.

Three months later, Monday’s raid is an implicit admission that this control seems to have slipped.

It is clear that Hamas is operating in parts of northern Gaza that were supposed to have been cleared by Israeli forces a long time ago. In February, there was fighting in Zeitoun, a neighbourhood of Gaza City, and al-Shati camp, further up the coast. There have even been clashes in Beit Hanoun, which was one of the first places overrun by Israeli forces at the very beginning of the war. [Continue reading…]