HRW: Israeli evidence of weapons in al-Shifa Hospital 'insufficient’

Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that images released by Israel showing weapons it says its soldiers found inside Gaza's biggest hospital are not sufficient to justify revoking the hospital's status as protected by the laws of war.

"Hospitals have special protections under international humanitarian law. Doctors, nurses, ambulances and other hospital staff must be permitted to do their work and patients must be protected," Human Rights Watch UN director Louis Charbonneau told Reuters.

"Hospitals only lose those protections if it can be shown that harmful acts have been carried out from the premises. The Israeli government hasn’t provided any evidence of that."