KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — The Israeli navy raided Gaza‘s largest hospital early Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the facility, which has been the site of a standoff with the ruling militant group.
Israeli authorities claim the militants conceal military operations in the Shifa Hospital. But with hundreds of patients and medical personnel inside, the military has refrained from entering.
In recent weeks, Israeli defense forces have publicly warned that such use of the hospital “jeopardizes its protected status under international law,” the military said. On Tuesday, military officials conveyed again to Gaza authorities that all military activity in the hospital must cease within 12 hours.
“Unfortunately, it did not,” the military said.
Hamas has denied the Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital for cover.
Israeli military officials gave no further details but said they were taking steps to avoid harm to civilians.
The operation unfolded after the military seized broader control of northern Gaza on Tuesday, including capturing the territory’s legislature constructing and its police headquarters, in features that carried excessive symbolic worth within the nation’s quest to crush Hamas.
Meanwhile, Israeli protection officers stated they’ve agreed to permit some gasoline shipments into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations. It was the primary time that Israel has allowed gasoline into the besieged territory since Hamas‘ bloody cross-border invasion on Oct. 7.
Inside some of the captured buildings, soldiers held up the Israeli flag and military flags in celebration. In a nationally televised news conference, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had “lost control” of northern Gaza and that Israel made significant gains in Gaza City.
But asked about the time frame for the war, Gallant said: “We’re speaking about lengthy months, not a day or two.”
One Israeli commander in Gaza, recognized solely as Lt. Col. Gilad, stated in a video that his forces close to Shifa Hospital had seized authorities buildings, faculties and residential buildings the place they discovered weapons and eradicated fighters.
The military stated it had captured the legislature, the Hamas police headquarters and a compound housing Hamas’ navy intelligence headquarters. The buildings are highly effective symbols, however their strategic worth was unclear. Hamas fighters are believed to be positioned in underground bunkers.
For days, the Israeli military has encircled Shifa Hospital. Hundreds of sufferers, employees and displaced folks had been trapped inside, with provides dwindling and no electrical energy to run incubators and different lifesaving gear. After days with out refrigeration, morgue employees on Tuesday dug a mass grave within the yard for greater than 120 our bodies, officers stated.
Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent stated Tuesday it had evacuated sufferers, medical doctors and displaced households from one other Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds.
Israel has vowed to finish Hamas rule in Gaza after the militants’ Oct. 7 assault into Israel by which they killed some 1,200 folks and took roughly 240 hostages. The Israeli authorities has acknowledged it doesn’t know what it’s going to do with the territory after Hamas’ defeat.
The Israeli onslaught — one of the crucial intense bombardments to this point this century — has been disastrous for Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians.
More than 11,200 folks, two-thirds of them girls and minors, have been killed in Gaza, in response to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah. About 2,700 folks have been reported lacking. The ministry’s depend doesn’t differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
Almost your entire inhabitants of Gaza has squeezed into the southern two-thirds of the tiny territory, the place situations have been deteriorating at the same time as bombardment there continues. About 200,000 fled the north in current days, the U.N. stated Tuesday, although tens of hundreds are believed to stay.
The U.N. company for Palestinian refugees stated Tuesday that its gasoline storage facility in Gaza was empty and that it could quickly finish reduction operations, together with bringing restricted provides of meals and drugs in from Egypt for greater than 600,000 folks sheltering in faculties and different amenities within the south.
“Without fuel, the humanitarian operation in Gaza is coming to an end. Many more people will suffer and will likely die,” stated Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA.
Israeli protection officers, who repeatedly rejected permitting gasoline into Gaza saying Hamas would divert it for navy use, modified course early Wednesday. Israel will permit some 24,000 liters (6,340 gallons) of gasoline into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations, officers stated.
The Coordinator of Government Activities within the Territories, the Israeli protection physique answerable for Palestinian affairs, stated it could permit U.N. vehicles to refill on the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border later Wednesday. It stated the choice was in response to a request from the U.S.
PLIGHT OF HOSPITALS
Fighting has raged for days across the Shifa Hospital complicated on the heart of Gaza City that has now “turned into a cemetery,” its director stated in an announcement.
The Health Ministry stated 40 sufferers, together with three infants, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of gasoline Saturday. Another 36 infants are susceptible to dying as a result of there is no such thing as a energy for incubators, in response to the ministry.
The Israeli navy stated it began an effort to switch incubators to Shifa. But they’d be ineffective with out electrical energy, stated Christian Lindmeier, a World Health Organization spokesman.
The Health Ministry has proposed evacuating the hospital with the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross and transferring the sufferers to hospitals in Egypt, however has not acquired any response, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra stated.
While Israel says it’s keen to permit employees and sufferers to evacuate, some Palestinians who’ve made it out say Israeli forces have fired at evacuees.
Israel says its claims of a Hamas command heart in and beneath Shifa are primarily based on intelligence, nevertheless it has not supplied visible proof to help them. Denying the claims, the Gaza Health Ministry says it has invited worldwide organizations to research the ability.
The evacuation on the Al-Quds Hospital adopted “more than 10 days of siege, during which medical and humanitarian supplies were prevented from reaching the hospital,” Palestinian Red Crescent officers stated.
In a submit on X, they blamed the Israeli military for bombarding the hospital and firing at these inside.
The White House’s nationwide safety council spokesperson, John Kirby, stated the U.S. has unspecified intelligence that Hamas and one other Palestinian militants use Shifa and different hospitals and tunnels beneath them to help navy operations and maintain hostages.
The intelligence is predicated on a number of sources, and the U.S. independently collected the data, a U.S. official stated on the situation of anonymity to debate delicate issues.
Kirby stated the U.S. doesn’t help airstrikes on hospitals and doesn’t wish to see “a firefight in a hospital where innocent people” are attempting to get care.
MARCH FOR HOSTAGES
Families and supporters of the round 240 folks being held hostage by Hamas began a protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The plight of the hostages has dominated public discourse because the Oct. 7 assault, with solidarity protests held throughout the nation. The marchers, who count on to achieve Jerusalem on Saturday, say the federal government should do extra to carry house their loved-ones.
“Where are you?” Shelly Shem Tov, whose 21-year-old son, Omer, is among the many captives, referred to as out to Netanyahu. “We have no strength anymore. We have no strength. Bring back our children and our families home.”
BATTLE IN GAZA CITY
Independent accounts of the preventing in Gaza City have been almost unimaginable to collect, as communications to the north have largely collapsed.
Israeli navy spokesman Daniel Hagari stated Israeli forces have accomplished the takeover of Shati refugee camp, a densely constructed district bordering Gaza City‘s center, and are moving about freely in the city as a whole.
Videos released by the Israeli military show troops moving through the city, firing into buildings. Bulldozers push down structures as tanks roll through streets surrounded by partially collapsed towers.
The videos portray a battle where troops are rooting out pockets of Hamas fighters and tearing down buildings where they find them, while gradually dismantling the group’s tunnel community.
Israel says it has killed a number of thousand fighters, together with vital mid-level commanders, whereas 46 of its personal troopers have been killed in Gaza.
• Jeffery and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel in Jerusalem, Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
