In a harrowing revelation, Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for the Civil Defense in Gaza, disclosed that around 300 decomposing bodies with signs of torture were scattered in the vicinity of al-Shifa Medical Complex and its surrounding areas following the withdrawal of occupation forces after a two-week siege.

Basal confirmed that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) had executed civilians, whose bodies were found handcuffed at al-Shifa hospital. Furthermore, he detailed that the IOF had set fire to wards within the hospital, leaving devastation in their wake as they destroyed all medical equipment and supplies.

Al-Shifa Hospital is the largest medical complex and central hospital in the Gaza Strip. Now? it’s hard to even recognise that this was once a hospital!! pic.twitter.com/8I4QNdRz3J

— بلستيا (@byPlestia) April 1, 2024

Earlier today, Al Mayadeen's correspondent in Gaza reported that Israeli occupation forces have completely withdrawn from the vicinity of al-Shifa Medical Complex toward the southwest of Gaza City.

He further reported that scores of martyrs' bodies were found in the vicinity of the hospital after the withdrawal of the occupation forces.

"Dozens of bodies, some of them decomposed, have been recovered from in and around Al-Shifa medical complex," the Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement.

Al-Shifa Hospital Entered By Journalists After Israel Withdrew Its Forces (2 week siege).

Decomposing bodies, with signs of torture & hands bound everywhere.

Israel doesn’t have an army, it has a militia of uncontrolled sadists. What a cowardly, pathetic group of terrorists. pic.twitter.com/lescS4rejD

— Robert Inlakesh (@falasteen47) April 1, 2024

The Israeli occupation military "withdrew from Al-Shifa medical complex after burning down the complex buildings and putting it completely out of service", it said.

"The scale of the destruction inside the complex and the buildings around it is vast."

Our correspondent mentioned that emergency committees warned civilians against hastily inspecting the situation at al-Shifa Hospital, fearing the presence of Israeli snipers and ambushes in its vicinity.

In the same context, the Gaza Government Media Office had reported that hundreds of heavily armed soldiers, police dogs, dozens of tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles, and military helicopters participated in the invasion of al-Shifa Hospital, which hosted 5,000 patients and around 30,000 forcibly displaced civilians who took shelter in its facilities.

Harrowing scenes expose the brutality of IOF

Al-Shifa Medical Complex, in particular, has become a symbol of the brutality of Israeli occupation forces, largely through social media videos and the reporting of some of the last Palestinian journalists in northern Gaza.

The testimonies of survivors have become some of the defining images of "Israel's" ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza — children killed, doctors killed, pregnant women raped, pools of blood, scattered bodies, brutal interrogations, and torture.

🚨Breaking: The Israeli army killed Dr. Ahmed Al-Maqadma, a plastic surgery specialist, and his mother inside Al-Shifa Hospital in #Gaza . pic.twitter.com/7Igurelo1F

— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) April 1, 2024

Families in a state of profound shock‼️

Since early morning, they've come to Al-Shifa Hospital in #Gaza searching for their loved ones, only to be met with hundreds of decomposing bodies, including children, women, and the elderly, bound and unrecognizable ‼️#Gaza_Genocide pic.twitter.com/5gfpxInh9m

— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) April 1, 2024

A particularly chilling footage has surfaced, showing the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) carrying out executions of Palestinians, among them a woman, after gunfire was unleashed upon them near the al-Shifa complex.

Furthermore, circulating images have emerged, portraying the miraculous survival of wounded individuals who endured severe conditions without access to food or water throughout the two-week siege of the al-Shifa Medical Complex.

As we now learn more about one of the worst atrocities in human history, Israel's destruction of Gaza's al-Shifa Hospital and slaughter of civilians taking refuge there, a thread on some of the US media stenographers who laundered US-Israeli lies about a Hamas "command and… https://t.co/5LM8MbS0hI

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) April 1, 2024

The bodies of martyrs in the vicinity of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, west of Gaza, were run over by the occupation mechanisms#Gaza #GazaGenocide #PalestineFree #IsraeliCrime pic.twitter.com/2TpdD6G2Eq

— 🇵🇸Mary Al-Assar (@assar_mary) April 1, 2024

Today, al-Shifa Medical Complex lies in ruins, a grim testament to the deliberate onslaught by occupation forces targeting Gaza City's vital health sector.

Read next: 'Israel' willfully killed patients, arrested staff at al-Shifa: Report