IDF launches "precise and targeted" ground operation inside Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital Hamas blames it on Biden

The Israel Defence Forces says it is carrying out a "precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area" of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.

"The IDF is 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's press service said in a statement.

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.

"Yesterday, the IDF conveyed to the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours. Unfortunately, it did not," the Israeli military said, adding that Hamas's alleged use of the hospital violates international law.

Al-Shifa is in the heart of Gaza City and at the centre of a tense standoff. The World Health Organization has called the situation for patients at the Palestinian territory's largest hospital "dire and perilous." 

Less than an hour before the IDF's statement, a Gaza health ministry spokesman said Israel had told officials in the enclave that it would raid the Shifa hospital complex "in the coming minutes".

The announcement came one day after President Biden said that hospitals in the Gaza Strip "must be protected." 

The radical Palestinian movement Hamas has held Biden responsible for the Israeli army's operation against Al-Shifa hospital.

"We hold the occupiers (Israel), President Biden and his administration fully responsible for the attack on the Al-Shifa medical complex," the radicals said in a statement.

Hamas called the Israeli military's operation "a brutal crime against a medical facility protected by the Geneva Convention," vowing that "the occupation leaders and all those who colluded with them will be held accountable for killing children, the sick and defenceless civilians."

Meanwhile, a top commander of the Palestinian Hamas movement, Ahmed Akhandour, has ceased contact since Saturday, November 11.

He is the commander of Hamas' northern division in the Gaza Strip and a senior figure in the organisation's military wing. According to Haaretz, Akhandour's condition is "unknown."

Hamas attacked Israel on Saturday, October 7, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare, "We are at war." Israel says at least 1,200 people there, most of them civilians, were killed in the coordinated, multi-fronted terror attack launched from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory Hamas has controlled for years.

Netanyahu has said a cease-fire will be possible only if the approximately 240 hostages held in Gaza are released.

Now, Israel and the Hamas are studying the option of hostage exchange proposed during the negotiations on the formula "children for children".

The relevant proposal came during the talks mediated by Qatar and the US. The sources said it envisages the release of Israeli children held in the Gaza Strip in exchange for Palestinian children imprisoned in Israel. The talks are still ongoing, with no final agreement yet.