After an Israeli attack on al-Shifa headquarters, 20 Hamas fighters are killed

In an operation they said was directed at top Hamas leaders who had regrouped at al-Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers employing tanks and bulldozers assaulted the medical facility on Monday. This led to an hours-long struggle that both sides claimed had resulted in deaths.
The Israeli military’s senior spokesperson said that forces were working in “limited areas” of the compound when the operation started before daybreak.

The armed branch of Hamas, Qassam Brigades, said more than 12 hours later that its fighters were “engaged in fierce clashes with enemy forces” close to the hospital. The Israeli military said that from inside the compound, Hamas militants had fired at its troops, to which the IDF responded with fire. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israeli soldiers shot inside operating rooms and launched missiles into the building.
The Israeli military said that four months after Israeli soldiers raided the compound and discovered a tunnel shaft, it had undertaken the attack in response to fresh information that Hamas leaders were working out of the hospital. Israel said that 20 terrorists had been killed by Israeli soldiers during the operation. One of the dead, it said, was a senior Hamas official named Faiq Mabhouh, who was “armed and hiding in a compound” near al-Shifa and served as the commander of operations for the Hamas government’s internal security forces in Gaza. It also said that one of its men had died.

Hamas did not provide any proof for its claims that it had resulted in “deaths and injuries” to Israeli soldiers. Approximately 30,000 patients, medical personnel, and displaced residents reside at the hospital and its environs. The Gaza Health Ministry said that many individuals were killed and injured during the raid.
Meanwhile, on Monday, US President Biden had a conversation with Israeli PM Netanyahu. The two leaders’ first phone conversation since February 15th took place in the midst of acute disagreements about Netanyahu’s approach to the conflict.