The Israeli army announced at dawn that forces conduct a “targeted” “precision” operation on him against militants of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Al Shifa, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Munir Abu al-Ris, director general of Hamas’ health ministry in the Gaza Strip, told Qatar’s Al Jazeera television that Israeli special forces they raided the western part of the building complex of the hospital.

“Large explosions are heard” in the field where they are, and “inside the hospital,” he said.

Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kindra told the same television network later that “the occupation army is in the basement, searching the basement,” adding that Israeli military personnel “they shoot and use explosives.”

According to Mohammed Zaqut, director of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Israeli special forces initially raided the emergency department and operating rooms.

Patients panicked, said Dr. Al Reese.

Earlier, Chahal, the Israeli army, announced that it had begun an operation in Shifa, in which thousands of people areas, according to him as well as a representative of the American presidency, there is a “strategic” facility of Hamas.

Members of it are “carrying out a targeted precision operation against Hamas in a specific area of ​​Shifa Hospital,” said a statement made public via X (formerly Twitter), written in English.

The teams carrying out the operation include members of the “medical corps” and “Arabic-speaking” military personnel, while “special training” has been carried out to “prepare them for this complex and sensitive environment”. with “the intention of not harming civilians”, which are “used as human shields”.

The Israeli army demanded that “all” the fighters of the Palestinian Islamist movement who, according to it, are “inside” the hospital, “surrender”.

No clarification has been given as to who specifically was the target of the raid.

Dr. Al Rees told AFP that Israeli “armored” and “special forces” entered the Shifa compound and called on the UN and the international community to intervene “immediately” to end the operation.

Thousands of people, sick, wounded, members of the health army and displaced because of the war that has been raging since October 7, ethey are piled into the building complex of Sifa, which is surrounded “on all sides” by the Israeli army, according to Hamas. According to the director of the hospital, “179 bodies” were buried yesterday Tuesday in a mass grave.

“There are bodies scattered in the hospital corridors and the cold rooms of the morgues are no longer supplied” with electricity, said Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya.

On the night of Tuesday into Wednesday, the health ministry in the Gaza Strip said it had been alerted by the Israeli army of its intention to raid the hospital, at the center of hostilities with Hamas militants in recent days.

“The occupation (as Hamas refers to Israel) and President (US Joe) Biden bear full responsibility for the attack on the medical complex Shifa”, moreover, Hamas emphasized in its announcement in Arabic.

Earlier, the Palestinian Islamist movement warned against a possible “massacre” in the health structure.

“Green light”;

The Israeli military says Hamas’ strategic infrastructure is hidden in Shifa and that the Palestinian Islamist movement uses the civilian population as a “human shield”, which the movement denies.

Dramatically, the White House said Tuesday that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another movement, have installed “command and control center” at Sifa Hospital.

“The adoption by the White House and the Pentagon of the false occupation narrative that the resistance is using the Al Shifa medical complex for military purposes gives the green light to the Israeli occupation to commit new barbaric massacres in hospitals in order to destroy the system health of Gaza,” Hamas, which Israel, the US and the EU label a “terrorist” organization, said in a statement written in English.

After the start of the operation, a representative of the national security council of the US presidency said that “We don’t support airstriking a hospital and we don’t want to see a battle inside a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people, trying to get the medical care they need, will find themselves in the crossfire.” Emphasizing that “we will not comment in detail on an ongoing Israeli operation”, he added that “as we have already said, hospitals and patients must be protected”, repeating a phrase of President Biden a few days ago.

“During the past few weeks, we have repeatedly warned that the continued use of the Shifa hospital for military purposes ends its protection under international law,” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said last night, shortly before the raid.

Identical wording was included in the announcement about the operation, which is being conducted “based on information gathered and due to operational necessity.”

According to the spokesman Hagari, the army “informed the competent authorities of Gaza that all military activities inside the hospital had to stop within 12 hours”. but “unfortunately this did not happen”.

The Israel/Hamas war was triggered by the unprecedented attack launched on Israeli soil by militants of the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7, with an account some 1,200 dead, mostly civilians. Since then, the Israeli army has been relentlessly pounding the Gaza Strip. With the war now in its 40th day, in the Gaza Strip at least 11,320 people have been killed, also the vast majority of them civilians, among them 4,650 children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.