It is Gaza’s biggest hospital, a sprawling complex of 22 acres, housing emergency and neonatal facilities as well as specialist units.
More than that it has become a place that is symbolic of Palestinian resilience where doctors have performed heroically, saving lives in the most difficult of conditions.
They almost certainly cannot speak entirely freely and when Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 it fired hundreds of staff affiliated with the more moderate Palestinian Fatah faction.
Israel, which has now carried out a targeted raid on al Shifa, claims there is a vast tunnel network under the hospital extending out across the Gaza Strip.
More recently though, visiting medical professionals have expressed scepticism the hospital was being used by Hamas in a military sense anymore.
When Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in 2007 it allegedly purged al Shifa of doctors who were not compliant to its rule.
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