Israeli troops enter Gaza’s largest hospital

Including updates from Hugo Bachega in Lebanon, Jeremy Bowen and Mark Lowen in southern Israel, Paul Adams, Yolande Knell, Yogita Limaye, Nick Beake, Joel Gunter, and Orla Guerin in Jerusalem; and Rushdi Abualouf in Gaza

Israel claims that at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, its armed forces are conducting an operation against Hamas. Tanks and commando soldiers were seen entering the hospital’s main emergency room, according to a witness who spoke to the BBC while inside.

The US claims to have intelligence supporting Israel’s assertion that Hamas is headquartered under Al-Shifa; however, Hamas disputes this. 200 patients have been buried in a mass grave at the hospital, according to a doctor there earlier, and the facility is running low on fuel.

In Gaza, thousands of people who are sleeping in tents will experience a night of intense rain.
Following Hamas’s October 7 attacks, which resulted in 1,200 deaths and more than 200 hostages, Israel started attacking Gaza. Since then, over 11,000 people have died in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 4,500 of whom were children.

In Israel and Gaza, where Israeli forces are operating on the main hospital in Gaza, it is past 5:00.

After several days of attacks and intense combat around the Gaza City grounds, this is the first time the military has entered Al-Shifa Hospital directly.

READ ALSO: Israeli attack hits ambulance near Gaza hospital, resulting in 15 deaths

The “precise and targeted operations against Hamas” were declared shortly after 2:00 a.m. local time in the dead of night. There were Israeli soldiers positioned outside the medical facility.

An eyewitness described how tanks were inside the hospital grounds and how hundreds of soldiers had “stormed” the facility to Rushdi Abu Alouf, the BBC’s reporter in Gaza.

The number of troops that have been dispatched is unknown, and it’s unclear what the mission’s immediate goal is.

Israel, however, has maintained that Hamas maintains an operational base buried beneath the hospital and has utilised the facility as a base of operations.

For the first time, the US announced on Tuesday that its own intelligence verified such assertions. It said that weapons had been “stored there” and that Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another violent Palestinian organisation, “operate a command and control node from Al-Shifa”.

Hamas has continually refuted the allegations, claiming that Israel was given the “green light” to carry out the hospital raid by the White House’s confirmation.

Israel claimed to have given Hamas authorities a 12-hour notice to stop hospital activities, but the warning was never followed. It stated that “no harm is caused to the civilians being used as human shields by Hamas” as part of its operation.

BBC