Al-Shifa Hospital (Arabic: مستشفى الشفاء‎ Mustashfa al-Shifa), properly known as Dar Al-Shifa Hospital (Arabic: مستشفى دار الشفاء‎ Mustashfat dar al-Shifa) is the largest medical complex and central hospital in the Gaza Strip, located in the neighbourhood of North Rimal in Gaza City in the Gaza Governorate. The current director of the hospital is Dr. Naser Tattar.

History

Dar Al-Shifa, which means "house of healing" in Arabic, was originally a British Army barracks, but was transformed into a center to provide treatment for quarantine and febrile diseases by the government of the British Mandate of Palestine. Prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, al-Shifa was the only hospital in Gaza. When the Egyptians administered the Gaza Strip after the war, the quarantine and febrile diseases department was relocated to another area in the city and al-Shifa developed into the central hospital of Gaza. Initially, a department for internal medicine was established, followed by a new wing for surgery, and subsequently new buildings for pediatrics and ophthalmology were added to the hospital. In 2013, a special surgical building was opened.

The Al-Shifa (الشفاء, Arabic for "healing") pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum North, Sudan, was constructed between 1992 and 1996 with components imported from the United States, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, India, and Thailand. It was opened July 12, 1997.

The industrial complex was composed of four buildings. It was the largest pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum and employed over 300 workers, producing medicine both for human and veterinary use.

The factory was destroyed in 1998 by a missile attack launched by the United States government, killing one employee and wounding eleven. The U.S. government alleged that the factory was used for the processing of VX nerve agent and that the owners of the plant had ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda.

These justifications for the bombing were disputed by the owners of the plant, the Sudanese government, and other governments. American officials later acknowledged "that the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile strike on the Shifa plant was not as solid as first portrayed. Indeed, officials later said that there was no proof that the plant had been manufacturing or storing nerve gas, as initially suspected by the Americans, or had been linked to Osama bin Laden, who was a resident of Khartoum in the 1980s."