Battles rage around Gaza's Al Shifa hospital, Israel says 170 gunmen dead

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Bassam and Masoud

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -Fighting raged on Saturday around Gaza's main hospital where Israel says it has so far killed more than 170 gunmen in an extensive raid, which the Palestinian Health Ministry says has also resulted in the deaths of five patients.

The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters were engaged in battles with the Israeli forces outside and around the vicinity of Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, though Hamas denies any presence inside the facility.

Israeli troops stormed Al Shifa in the early hours of Monday morning and have been combing through the sprawling complex, which the military says is connected to a tunnel network used as a base for Hamas and other Palestinian fighters.

The Gaza health ministry said five wounded Palestinians «besieged» inside Al Shifa died as a result of being denied proper care, water and food for the past six days and that the condition of other injured patients was deteriorating.

The Israeli military, which has lost two soldiers in combat at the hospital, says it is preventing harm to civilians, patients and medical staff there and providing them with food, water and adequate access to healthcare.

Reuters has been unable to access the hospital and verify either account.

Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital before the war, is now one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in the north of the territory, and had also been housing displaced civilians.

Residents living nearby said Israeli forces blew up dozens of houses and apartments in the streets around the hospital and bulldozed roads. They said a nearby private medical center, Al-Helo Hospital, was also hit by the army.

The Hamas-run