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PremiumIsrael-Hamas war LIVE: In the latest development in the prolonged Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has entered inside Gaza's largest hospital Al-Shifa on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, Hamas militants have blamed ISarel and the US for Israeli army raid on Al-Shifa.
Israeli authorities claim the militants conceal military operations in the facility. The function of the hospital halted on Monday due to fuel shortages.
Israel has vowed to end Hamas rule in Gaza after the militants' 7 October attack on Israel in which they killed some 1,200 people and took roughly 240 hostages.
Yesterday a large crowd in Washington DC protested in favour of Israel and demanded Hamas to release hostages.
The event is believed to be the largest pro-Israel gathering in the US since Hamas inflicted widespread carnage in Israel on October 7.
“Do you remember when they said we wouldn't invade Gaza? We invaded. They said we wouldn't get to the outskirts of Gaza City; we did. They said we wouldn't go into Shifa (the hospital); we went in," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, in a video released by his office.
"There is no place in Gaza that we won't reach. There is no hideout, no shelter, no refuge for the Hamas murderers," he added.
Israel-Hamas War Live: "A number of partners including the World Health Organization (WHO) are urgently exploring the possibility for evacuating patients and medical staff in Al Shifa Hospital," Reuters quoted Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, as saying.
Israel-Hamas War Live: "IDF soldiers have already found weapons and other terror infrastructure. In the last hour, we saw concrete evidence that Hamas terrorists used the Shifa hospital as a terror headquarter," an Israeli military official told news agency Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
Rejecting the claim, Hamas, in a statement, said: “(This claim) is nothing but a continuation of the lies and cheap propaganda, through which (Israel) is trying to give justification for its crime aimed at destroying the health sector in Gaza."
Qatari mediators were seeking to negotiate a deal between Hamas and Israel that includes the release of around 50 civilian hostages from Gaza in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters.
An imminent “telecom blackout" fear looms over Gaza due to the lack of fuel in the besieged rgion. "Main data centers and switches in the Gaza Strip are gradually shutting down due to fuel depletion," said a statement issued jointly by the region's two main telecom service providers Paltel and Jawwal.
Israel-Hamas war LIVE: The Bank of Israel has issued a cautionary note that the proposed amendments to the state budget were insufficient, and that the government needed to curb unnecessary non-war related expenditures.
Israeli Air Force has shared a video in which a manned aircraft detected terrorists in the north of the Gaza Strip, holding a bag suspected of being a bomb planted in the route of movement of our forces.
"The aircraft followed the terrorists, and eliminated two of them," the Israeli air force added.
A Palestinian journalist has shared a video on Instagram showing survivors digging the ground following an Israeli airstrike near Jabalia refugee camp.
He noted that children who went out to fill water bottles were killed in Israeli shelling.
Requests for gun permits in Israel have skyrocketed since Hamas’ bloody October 7 incursion, according to a press release from the Ministry of National Security.
More than 236,000 new requests for permits have been filed since the attack.
Some 1,700 permits are being issued daily after the Ministry of National Security eased restrictions, the report said.
Israeli tanks and military vehicles are inside the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital as per a CNN report.
Israeli soldiers are conducting searches and interrogations of young men inside the hospital, the report added.
According to a report by CNN, the Israeli army has not found any indication that hostages are inside the Al-Shifa hospital.
Israel has accused Hamas militants of operating beneath its structure – an allegation the militant group and hospital officials have denied.
Israel-Hamas war LIVE: A doctor at the Gaza Strip's Al Shifa hospital told Reuters on Wednesday that gunfire outside the compound forced staff to stay away from windows for their safety after an Israeli raid.
Israeli forces said they were raiding the complex because Hamas has a command centre underneath it and uses connected tunnels to hold hostages, an allegation that doctor Ahmed El Mokhallalati denied.
Palestinian foreign ministry has said it holds Israel's government responsible for the safety of those inside Shifa Hospital. The Israeli troops on Wednesday entered inside Gaza's largest hospital to annihilate Hamas militants. Israel has claimed that some of the Hamas terrorists are hiding inside the hospital while Hamas has dismissed the claim.
“Incubators, baby food and medical supplies, provided by the IDF, have successfully reached the hospital," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Wednesday.
An unnamed security official told Times of Israel that the Israeli operation at Al-Shifa Hospital will be widened if necessary. He said that the IDF knows exactly what it is going to find there.
“We are starting small, and the operation will expand as necessary," Times of Israel reported.
The number of people inside the Al-Shifa hospital varies. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 1,500 people were sheltering in Al-Shifa. The WHO said, "There are between 600 and 650 inpatients at al-Shifa, as well as 200 to 500 health workers, and about 1,500 displaced people seeking shelter there".
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) told Al Jazeera that there are 650 patients at the hospital, with 100 in critical condition.
The Israeli military says it has seized a series of government buildings in central Gaza City as its offensive against the ruling Hamas militant group advances.
The army said Tuesday that it has captured Gaza’s legislature building.
“In every location, the enemy forces were eliminated, the location was demolished," an Israeli commander said in a video from Gaza released by the army.
Israeli news websites showed pictures of Israeli soldiers hoisting the Israeli national flag and military flags in some of the buildings.
Several cancer patients, who have evacuated from north Gaza, are under serious threat because of the lack of treatment and health follow-ups, Al Jazeera reported.
Overall, the 2,000 cancer patients in the Gaza Strip are living in “catastrophic health conditions amid the Israel-Hamas war, the news portal added.
The UN Security Council is negotiating a new resolution that demands “immediate extended humanitarian pauses" throughout the Gaza Strip but makes no mention of a cease-fire.
The Security Council has rejected four resolutions on the Israel-Hamas war, and many of its 15 members have said they don't want a vote on a new resolution unless it's going to be approved.
Israel-Hamas war LIVE: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that Israeli forces are not targeting civilians. He accused Hamas militants of committing horrendous crimes against the Jews since the holocaust.
"Israel provides civilians in Gaza humanitarian corridors and safe zones, and Hamas prevents them from leaving at gunpoint.
It is Hamas, not Israel that should be held accountable for committing a double war crime - targeting civilians while hiding behind civilians," the Israeli PM wrote on the X platform.
The forces of civilization must back Israel in defeating Hamas's barbarism, Netanyahu added.
Israeli PM Netanyahu was responding to his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau.
The UN Agency for Palestine Refugees on Wednesday said that the humanitarian operation in Gaza will come to an end due to shortages of fuel. The UNRWA on social media wrote, "Despite heavily rationing fuel, humanitarian operations will grind to a halt in the Gaza Strip because no fuel has been allowed in since 7 October".
The Israeli army raid on Al-Shifa Hospital represents “a new crime against humanity, medical staff, and patients," the Palestinian health minister said
The minister added that the raid could have “catastrophic consequences" for patients and medical staff.
The US White House said that its independent intelligence supported Israel's claim that Hamas was using Gaza's hospitals, including its biggest, to hide command posts and hostages while a glimmer of progress emerged in hostage negotiations.
Israel has made the same claims, which Hamas denies.
Thousands of people in Washington came in support of Israel and condemned anti-Semitism. With senior members of Congress addressing the event on the National Mall, near the Capitol, the crowd rapidly swelled with people wearing the white and blue colors of Israel.
The demonstration, dubbed the March for Israel, centered on combating anti-Semitism and calling for the release of the hostages, according to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, one of the organizers.
Signs included "Annihilate Hamas" and "From the river to the sea, we support democracy."
Less than two weeks ago, a major pro-Palestinian demonstration took place in Washington, with a large crowd marching up to the fence around the White House.
As per the latest reports by the Gaza health ministry, dozens of Israeli soldiers entered the emergency department of Shifa Hospital.
Israeli defense officials say they have agreed to allow fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations.
Israel declared war and barred fuel shipments after the attack, saying Hamas would divert supplies for military use. But fuel shortages have crippled operations at Gaza hospitals, which run on generators, and hindered the U.N. from delivering humanitarian aid.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian affairs, announced early Wednesday that it would allow U.N. trucks to refill at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border later Wednesday.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas accused US President Joe Biden on Wednesday of being "wholly responsible" for an Israeli army operation at Gaza's largest hospital.
"We hold the occupation (Israel) and President Biden wholly responsible for the assault on the Al-Shifa medical complex," Hamas said in a statement.
According to CNN report, citing a journalist, Israeli tanks have breached Gaza's largest hospital complex. The journalist said that there were gunfire exchanges across the yard.
Fighting has raged for days around Shifa Hospital, a complex several city blocks across at the center of Gaza City that has now “turned into a cemetery," its director said in a statement.
The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. Another 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators, according to the ministry.
The Israeli military said it started an effort to transfer incubators to Shifa. But they would be useless without electricity, a World Health Organization spokesman said.
While Israel says it is willing to allow staff and patients to evacuate, some Palestinians who have made it out say Israeli forces have fired at evacuees.
Israel says its claims of a Hamas command center in and beneath Shifa are based on intelligence, but it has not provided visual evidence to support them.
According to Palestinian Health Ministry, more thann 11,200 people, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed in Gaza. About 2,700 people have been reported missing. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. Almost the entire population of Gaza has squeezed into the southern two-thirds of the tiny territory, where conditions have been deteriorating even as bombardment there continues. About 200,000 fled the north in recent days, the U.N. said Tuesday.
The Israel army, which is carrying out a "precise and targeted operation" against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa Hospital, has asked the Gaza-run militant group to surrender.
"We call upon all Hamas terrorists present in the hospital to surrender," Israel Defense Forces wrote on the X platfrom.
The Israeli military entered Gaza's largest hospital early Wednesday, conducting what it called a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area" of the facility. The IDF said, “conducting a ground operation in Gaza to defeat Hamas and rescue our hostages. Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the civilians in Gaza".
“The IDF forces include medical teams and Arabic speakers, who have undergone specified training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the intent that no harm is caused to the civilians being used by Hamas as human shields," the Isarel Defense Forces wrote on the X platform.
Israel believes it has given the Hamas operatives sufficient time to cease their alleged activities inside the building.
Israeli authorities claim the militants conceal military operations in the facility. Hamas has denied the Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital for cover.
