Israel signals operations in southern Gaza after hospital raid

Israel is planning military operations in southern Gaza and has asked residents of some neighbourhoods to evacuate their homes, according to leaflets dropped into the city of Khan Younis that signalled a potential widening of the Israeli invasion.

The warning came as the Israeli military announced on Thursday that it had discovered the body of a hostage in Gaza City during a second day of operations around al-Shifa hospital, the largest healthcare facility in the coastal enclave.

Daniel Hagari, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, said the body of Yehudit Weiss, a 65-year-old Israeli abducted from a kibbutz during the Hamas attacks of October 7, was found in a house in the vicinity of the hospital.

During its search of the hospital, the IDF said it had found an “underground tunnel shaft” as well as Hamas weapons. The claims could not be independently verified.

Israel has mainly focused military operations in northern Gaza during its war against Hamas, the Palestinian military group that launched a deadly attack on the Jewish state on October 7.

The IDF did not respond to questions about the thousands of leaflets that were dropped, telling residents of four specific neighbourhoods of Khan Younis to leave their houses immediately.

“For your safety you have to evacuate your places of residence and head to the known shelters,” said a copy of the leaflet posted on social media. “Whoever is present near terrorists or their installations will be exposing their life to danger.”

The neighbourhoods mentioned are in eastern Khan Younis, south of an evacuation line imposed by Israel, and were home to at least 100,000 residents before the war.

Those numbers have swollen as many Gazans fled south to escape the fighting in the north.

Israel now believes that several Hamas leaders have moved south, with
some in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, according to
several western officials.

Some of Israel’s allies have asked it to be cautious in its operations in the south, where nearly 1mn Palestinians have fled after being assured that it would be safer than the north, said one western official.

“Now first of all, we are seeing strikes in the south,” they
added. “And second . . . operations in Khan Younis can be incredibly
difficult [and] destructive.”

The western official said the scale and intensity of Israel’s growing ground invasion of Gaza has caused concerns, despite consistent support for the country’s right to defend itself. “I don’t think anybody meant that this
requires ground operations of such a scope,” they added.

However, US President Joe Biden signalled on Wednesday that the US had not given Israel a timeframe to conclude its campaign against Hamas, despite mounting domestic and international pressure to do so.

Biden said Israel’s war against the Palestinian militant group would end “when Hamas no longer maintains the capacity to murder, abuse and just do horrific things” to Israel.

Hours after the Israeli military raided al-Shifa hospital on Wednesday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses in the conflict “for a sufficient number of days” to allow aid to enter the besieged enclave.

The US, UK and Russia abstained on the resolution after Moscow tried to change the language to a ceasefire.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vehemently opposed proposals for a pause in fighting.

Gilad Erdan, Israel’s envoy to the UN, said on social media that the Security Council resolution was “disconnected from reality and is meaningless”. “Israel will continue to act until Hamas is destroyed and the hostages are returned.”

Israel declared war against Hamas after the group launched its surprise attack from Gaza on October 7 that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.

More than 200 people were taken hostage by Hamas, said the officials, and Israel has vowed to oust the militant group from Gaza.

Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 11,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, and hospitals have gradually ceased operating as Israeli forces have advanced deeper into the enclave and restricted shipments of fuel, water and food.

Israeli army releases video showing weapons found at al-Shifa hospital

Shalom, everyone. Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan from the IDF here. I am in the Shifa Hospital, as you can see from the sign behind me, and as you can clearly see from the building. We are going to do a one shot video, one shot, no editing of all of the evidence that we have found just now in this building of the Shifa [INAUDIBLE].

So we're inside the MRI centre of the Shifa hospital. Israeli troops breached here a few hours ago, and we have cleared the area, make sure that it's safe. And a few of the most interesting things that we have found totally confirm without any doubt that Hamas systematically uses hospitals in their military operations in violation of international law, and what we have found, I think, is only the tip of the iceberg.

Let me show you a few examples. Security cameras have been obstructed. All of the security cameras are covered, and this isn't the only one. You'll see the rest of them here. Follow me as we go in, and we will see the MRI centre and see the weapons that Hamas has hidden inside. This is where patients come in order to get MRI services. We'll proceed into a more secluded area. And the lighting here is out, so we're using flashlights.

We're now, as you can see, in an MRI room. I don't know when this was used the last time. I don't know when it was used the last time, but it is definitely an MRI machine. And if you follow me behind the MRI machine, I'll show you what our troops exposed just minutes ago. In military terms, this is a grab bag, grab and go, of a Hamas combatant. And if you zoom in and we get some light over here, what you'll be able to see is military equipment.

There is an AK 47. There are cartridges and ammo. There are grenades in here. Of course, uniform, and all of this was hidden very conveniently, secretly behind the MRI machine. On the other side, we found a backpack with what appears to be very important intelligence, including a laptop, and we'll show you that momentarily. Let's go see the next room.

So we're still in the MRI centre. The backpack was found in here, and it was also hidden behind the MRI machine. As you can see the rest of the equipment here is proper hospital equipment, right? Bandages and medical gear. It seems as if there is no real shortage because there's a lot of equipment here, but we'll leave that for another discussion. Let's go see weapons and other prohibited items.

As we walk through the main corridor here, our troops did a preliminary search of the area. We tried to uncover the cameras, but all of the cameras have been obstructed. You can see there's black tape covering it, and when our troops opened this closet here, which is in the main part of the clinic, this is what they found. These weapons have absolutely no business being inside a hospital. The only reason they're here is because Hamas put them here because they use this place, like many other hospitals and ambulances and sensitive facilities inside the Gaza Strip for their illicit military purposes.

So there's Kalashnikov rifles here, even ammunition. And let's go see the next part of what we have here. Another MRI machine. Another MRI machine, where behind it, we also found contraband similar to what you saw in the other areas. And let's go see the last thing, which is more related to intelligence, which I think we will be able to extract quite a lot of interesting intelligence from.

As you can see, follow me, up here on top of a spare part of the MRI department, we found another grab bag. It's empty because we emptied it and cleared it so that we could use and see it, so this is where we found it. And here are the contents of the bag. The contents of the bag are full military kit for one Hamas terrorist. A live grenade, ammunition, fighting vest with insignia, boots, and of course, uniforms. And last but not least, standard AK 47 inside the hospital, hidden in a secluded area. Take a look at this door here. Blast proof door, which is part of the clinic and part of the infrastructure of the hospital. Everything else looks like a hospital, only this part doesn't. Last part.

Now we will see something that our intel researchers are looking into. Hold on. Before we go on, let's have a look at what we found inside the very same cabinet that houses medical equipment. You can see all kinds of standard medical stuff. We found another go to bag, this bag here. And again, we opened it up in order to make sure that it's safe to touch and show, so please don't give me any of that, you opened it up and you placed it there. This is the bag that we found, and this is the stuff that was in it.

Now, there's insignia, military insignia. A knife. For those of you who read Arabic, you'll be able to understand what it says here, but it's Hamas, the military wing. [SPEAKING ARABIC] Of course, a vest with equipment, and as always, an AK 47. Standard gear. Grab and go, which they thought would be a good place to store inside a hospital.

And the last item, which I'm sure will be very interesting to analyse, is a laptop. We found it in the MRI room. This is how the laptop looks. I don't know who it belonged to, but now, it is being analysed by our intel people. Tactical radio communications, which we will analyse. Lots of discs, which will be analysed.

Israel’s military entered al-Shifa hospital in what it called a “targeted” operation to find Hamas weapons and infrastructure.

The raid was continuing on Thursday, according to two Palestinians, who said Israeli forces were still surrounding the hospital and preventing people from leaving.

Doctors and patients sheltered on higher floors while soldiers inspected a magnetic resonance imaging department, detained several Palestinians and took others away for further questioning, some with visible bruises and wounds, said people at the hospital.

The IDF said on Thursday it had found military equipment including rocket-propelled grenades at the site of al-Shifa.

In a video released by the IDF, the army displayed roughly a dozen AK-47 rifles, a handful of grenades and radios, and a laptop displaying a picture of a hostage as evidence of the hospital being a command and control headquarters of Hamas.

Israel contends that the hospital sits on top of an underground tunnel network housing Hamas command centres. Hamas has denied the claims, describing them as an Israeli excuse to take over the hospital.

“One thing has been established . . . Hamas does have headquarters, weapons, material below this hospital and I suspect others,” Biden said, referring to al-Shifa.

He drew a distinction between Hamas, which he said had vowed to attack Israel “again and again”, and the IDF, which he said was acting with deliberation.

“The IDF . . . acknowledges they have an obligation to use as much caution as they can in going after their targets,” Biden said.

He also indicated there was progress in talks among Qatar, Hamas, Israel and others to release some of the hostages held by the militant group.

Israel signals operations in southern Gaza after hospital raid

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