IDF announces operation is underway at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital

The Israel Defence Forces announced early on Monday morning that they are undertaking a new operation is underway at Gaza ‘s largest hospital. Troops are carrying out a ‘precise operation’ following intelligence that senior Hamas officials were using the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City as a command center to plan and carry out terror attacks, the IDF said in a statement. Loud bangs caused the sky to light up in unverified video footage posted on social media with one person claiming the area was ‘under siege’ and a ‘complete mess’ in what was described as an ‘Israeli bombardment’.

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari (pictured) stated that the operation was targeting limited areas within the hospital complex based on ‘concrete intelligence that demanded immediate action’. ‘Our targeted mission isn’t just an operational necessity; it’s a global imperative,’ he said in video footage posted on the IDF’s X page. ‘Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza. We seek no harm to the civilians that Hamas is hiding behind’ Hagari said. He added: ‘We call upon all Hamas terrorists hiding in hospitals, surrender immediately. Medical facilities should never be exploited for terror. Hamas must be held accountable.’

IDF doctors and Arabic speakers accompanied security forces on the operation to help communicate with patients and staff, the Times of Israel reported. The patients and medics were not told to evacuate but pathways were cleared for civilians, the outlet reported. The Israeli army said ‘the IDF will continue the humanitarian effort and provide food, water and additional supplies to the patients and civilians in the complex’ once the mission is complete.

The hospital became the focus of the Israel-Hamas war in November as Israel closed in on what it says is a façade for a Hamas stronghold – claims the hospital and Hamas denied. Israeli troops, some wearing face masks and firing guns in the air, stormed the hospital that month.

They claimed to have found a tunnel shaft during the raid which they said was used by Hamas terrorists . The IDF released a video it said showed a tunnel entrance in an outdoor area of Al-Shifa hospital, two days after Israeli troops entered its grounds to hunt for a Hamas command centre they say is beneath the medical facility.

During the raid, Israel said its troops found the bodies of two hostages – Yehudit Weiss, 64, and Israeli soldier Noa Marciano, 19 – from a building adjacent to the hospital.

The new operation comes just one day after Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel won’t accept a Gaza peace deal that leaves his country ‘weak’ and ‘unable to defend itself against hostile neighbors.’ The Israeli Prime Minister said a potential agreement like that would ‘set peace backwards and not forward’ during a joint press appearance with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Jerusalem.

He also reiterated that ‘Israel has to have the necessary security responsibility’ in Gaza. This comes as Netanyahu vowed that civilians crammed into Rafah will be allowed to leave before Israel launches a new offensive on Hamas in another blow to ceasefire hopes. His comments, alongside visiting Scholz, follow international fears over the fate of the roughly 1.5 million people who have sought refuge in Rafah, most of them displaced from Gaza’s war.

The office of the right-wing premier, whose security and war cabinets were to discuss the latest international efforts towards a truce deal, had on Friday said he approved the military’s plan for an operation in Rafah as well as ‘the evacuation of the population’. ‘Our goal in eliminating the remaining terrorist battalions in Rafah goes hand-in-hand with enabling the civilian population to leave Rafah. It’s not something that we will do while keeping the population locked in place,’ Netanyahu said at a press appearance with Scholz. As others have done, Scholz raised the question: ‘How should more than 1.5 million people be protected? Where should they go?’

The United States – which provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance – has said it wants a ‘clear and implementable plan’ to ensure civilians are ‘out of harm’s way’. Before meeting Scholz, Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting that ‘no amount of international pressure will stop us from realising all the goals of the war’, and that to do this, ‘we will also operate in Rafah’. Israel has repeatedly threatened a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, where people shelter in tents crammed up against the Egyptian border. UN World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged against a military operation there, ‘in the name of humanity’. Tedros said ‘this humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen’.

Netanyahu leads a coalition of religious and ultra-nationalist parties. His failure to bring home the hostages taken by Hamas militants during their attack which started the war has led to mounting protests within his country as well as domestic calls for early elections. Hamas’s unprecedented attack from Gaza on October 7 resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment and ground offensive which has killed at least 31,645 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.

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