DUBAI, November 15. /TASS/. Dozens of Israeli servicemen entered the emergency room of the Al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, more Israeli soldiers are staying outside the hospital "overflowing with patients," including "a large number of newborn babies."
The channel also reported that Israeli tanks were deployed in the hospital’s yard.
The Israeli military began storming the Al-Shifa hospital in the early hours of Wednesday, claiming that the facility acts as a cover-up for the main headquarters of the HAMAS movement. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also claimed that that the medical facility houses an entrance to a network of underground bunkers and tunnels, where around 200 radicals are hiding. It is also believed that an unknown number of Israeli hostages may be kept in these tunnels.
The situation in the Middle East sharply escalated following an incursion of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israel on October 7, accompanied by killings of residents of Israeli settlements near the border and taking more than 200 hostages, including children, women and elderly people. Hamas regards the attack as a response to Israeli actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Israel has declared a complete siege of the Gaza Strip and has started delivering strikes on that area and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.