PALESTINIANS fleeing the ongoing Israeli raid on the Gaza Strip’s main hospital today described days of heaving fighting accompanied by mass arrests and forced marches past dead bodies.

The Israeli military says it has killed over 170 Palestinian resistance fighters and detained some 480 suspects during its raid on al-Shifa hospital, which began last Monday.

And at least another 19 Palestinians were killed and 23 injured at the weekend while waiting for humanitarian assistance in an Israeli attack targeting civilians south-east of Gaza City, the Strip’s Ministry of Health said.

Israel faces worldwide pressure for a ceasefire, with London to hold the 11th national demonstration this Saturday.

Thousands of pro-Palestine solidarity campaigners were out in force this weekend across Britain, with more than 50 rallies up and down the country demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

Trade unions, left-wing politicians and campaigners joined local actions in line with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s (PSC) call for a day of action.

PSC warned that Israel was “using starvation as a weapon against Palestinians in Gaza, with its siege causing acute shortages of food, water and essential medicines.”

The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said that Israel has confirmed it will no longer approve UNRWA food convoys to northern Gaza.

PSC added: “We must keep taking action to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to the genocide, and for the government to end its complicity in Israel’s attacks including by ending the arms trade with Israel.”

Today saw protests in London, Liverpool, Reading and Portsmouth after dozens of rallies up and down the country on Saturday.

Protesters hailed student occupations calling on university managers at Leeds, Goldsmiths, Bristol, Nottingham and UCL to do more to support the Palestinians.

Hundreds of people joined a children-led march in Manchester on Saturday, with youngsters carrying stretchers and pictures of some of the thousands killed in Israeli assaults.

In Bristol, there was anger over the large number of weapons firms present in the city.

Protesters chanted: “Killed by Elbit. Killed by Israel” as the local rally ended with the naming of dead Palestinian children and laying of small, white-wrapped bundles to commemorate them.

Protesters also chanted outside the main gate of the BAE Systems factory in Rochester, Kent, which makes control systems for the F-35 jets used by Israel.

Other rallies, including in Oxford, targeted Barclays bank branches. 

The bank provides more than £3 billion in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components, and military technology are used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians.

And today the British Museum was forced to evacuate as more than 200 Energy Embargo for Palestine protesters blocked the central London landmark’s front entrance over its partnership with energy giant BP, which has recently been awarded a natural gas exploration licence by Israel.

Organisers said they arrived to a major police presence following an “unprecedented show of collaboration between the museum and police … having been made aware of the mass disruption in advance by an undercover investigation which infiltrated organising group chats.”

The protest was supported by groups such as the Palestinian Youth Movement, Disrupt Power, and Workers for a Free Palestine through a series of speeches and teach-outs.

A spokesperson from Energy Embargo for Palestine said: “British Petroleum was a natural first target for our campaign because it is investing in Israeli settler-colonialism, stripping Palestinian waters of their resources, and profiting from colonial genocide and ethnic cleansing. The British Museum is the main platform for the social licence of BP, legitimises its philanthropic efforts and enshrines its image of corporate responsibility.

“This greenwashes BP’s climate crimes and investment in genocidal regimes such as Israel. The British Museum must cut ties with BP.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also facing pressure at home. 

On Saturday night, Israelis protested in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem against his government amid fears that the war is reducing the chance of rescuing surviving Israeli hostages taken by Hamas in its October 7 attack.

Meanwhile the heavy fighting in Gaza has highlighted the resilience of Palestinian resistance groups in an isolated and heavily destroyed part of Gaza where Israeli forces have returned after launching a similar raid back in November.

Kareem Ayman Hathat, who lived with his parents and two brothers in a five-storey building about 100 yards from al-Shifa hospital, said they huddled in the kitchen for days while gunfire and explosions echoed outside, sometimes causing the whole building to shake.

Early on Saturday, Israeli troops stormed the building and forced the men to strip to their underwear and four were detained. The rest were blindfolded and ordered to follow a tank south, as more blasts thundered around them.

Speaking from another hospital in Gaza where he has sought shelter, Mr Hathat told reporters that “from time to time, the tank would fire a shell — to terrorise us.”

Abed Radwan, who lived 200 yards from the hospital, said Israeli forces stormed all the buildings in the area, detaining several people and forcing the rest to march south. 

As he walked south with others, he saw dead bodies in the streets and several flattened homes.

Nearby Gaza City residents told reporters that Israeli troops had blown up several residential buildings.

“They are emptying the whole area,” said Abdel-Hay Saad, who lives on the western edge of Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood. 

Another resident, Mohammed al-Sheikh, said the Israelis were “hitting anything moving.”

The head of Israel’s southern command, Major General Yaron Finkelman, said: “We will finish this operation only when the last terrorist is in our hands — alive or dead.”

Shifa hospital had largely stopped functioning following the raid in November. 

Israeli forces were unable to convincingly back up its claim that Hamas maintained an elaborate command centre inside and beneath the hospital.

The Israelis were only able to provide unverifiable footage of a single tunnel leading to a few underground rooms. They also claimed, without evidence, that they found weapons in parts of the hospital.

Now in its sixth month, the Israelis have killed at least 32,226 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Women and children make up around two-thirds of the dead.

Israel says it has killed over 13,000 Palestinian resistance fighters. It blames civilian casualties on Hamas, accusing it of using schools, hospitals and residential areas to shield its fighters.

More than 80 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes, with most seeking refuge in the southernmost city of Rafah, which Israel says will be the next target of its ground offensive.

The war began when Hamas-led fighters staged a surprise attack on October 7 during which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others were taken hostage. 

Hamas is still holding an estimated 100 hostages and the remains of 30 others, after most of the rest were freed in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners in November

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres stood near a long line of waiting trucks on Saturday and declared it was time to “truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid,” calling the starvation inside the enclave a “moral outrage.”

The UN’s top diplomat urged an immediate ceasefire as he spoke on the Egyptian side of the border not far from the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israel plans to launch a ground assault despite widespread warnings of a potential catastrophe. 

More than half of Gaza’s population has taken refuge there.