Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) early Wednesday morning announced it would be “carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas” in specific areas of the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. This followed Tuesday night statements from Washington, in which senior White House officials backed Israeli claims that Hamas is using Gaza’s largest hospital Al-Shifa as a command and control center. The Israeli military continues to demand that Hamas surrender its headquarters hidden underneath it.
Speaking to the press aboard Air Force One Tuesday, US National Security Spokesman John Kirby said: “We have information that confirms that Hamas is using that particular hospital for a command and control mode” and likely to store weapons as well, adding that this constitutes a “war crime.”
Kirby told reporters that Washington stresses that Israel must do everything in its power to protect civilians during its operation to root out the terrorist group.
“To be clear, we do not support striking a hospital from the air. We do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people are simply trying to get the medical care they deserve,” he added.
Wednesday morning, the IDF said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the operation against “Hamas in a very specific area of the Shifa Hospital” was ongoing:
We have soldiers trained specifically for this situation and continue to reiterate we are ONLY at war with Hamas. We continue to do everything in our power to mitigate the risk of civilians.
In a post published hours earlier, the IDF confirmed that “incubators, baby food, and medical supplies, provided by the IDF, have successfully reached the hospital.” The IDF added that their “medical team and Arabic-speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need.” The IDF on Sunday published videos of Israeli soldiers delivering cans of fuel to the hospital but said that its efforts to provide relief to civilians had been hampered by Hamas.
“Hamas is meddling in this,” the IDF international spokesperson Richard Hecht said.
Israeli officials have underscored that incubators, in order to work, do not need to be connected to a power source.
The IDF has condemned Hamas for using Al Shifa Hospital as a command center to conduct its terrorist activities, writing: “Instead of treating the ill, Hamas uses hospitals for terrorism. This sick exploitation of the Gazan people must be stopped.”
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, spokesman for the IDF, stated their intelligence estimated that the remaining number of individuals inside the hospital is around 1,000.
Located in the center of Gaza City, the Al-Shifa Hospital is the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces closed in on the area around the hospital several days ago, following intelligence that Hamas had a control and command center under the facilities, a charge which Hamas has denied. Besides the patients and staff of the hospital, thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter in and around it. As its forces drew closer, Israel urged civilians to evacuate the hospital and the neighborhood around it, but thousands have remained even as the fighting has intensified and the hospital has run out of fuel.
Israel has said that the hospital’s east exit is a safe escape route for civilians and has pledged its willingness to provide humanitarian relief to the hospital, including evacuating patients and sending in battery-powered incubators for premature babies.
The Hamas-lead government of Gaza does not distinguish between Hamas fighters and non-combatants in its count of the dead in Gaza since Israel launched its counterattack on Hamas. In a jihad mentality, all are martyrs and have all lived and died in the most glorious way possible. For Islamist jihadis, death, even of civilians, is not a reason to surrender.
