DUBAI, March 28. /TASS/. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani has questioned the effectiveness of international institutions amid Israel’s operation in Al-Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

"Do the international organizations and institutions not have any practical responsibility other than taking political positions, issuing statements or passing resolutions in order to establish deterrence and stop this overt and reckless genocide and to prosecute war criminals?" he wrote on the X social network, commenting on the Israeli military operation in the Palestinian hospital. According to him, the siege of Al-Shifa and attacks on Al-Amal Hospital are "part of the process of war crimes and genocidal operations" of the Israeli army in the embattled enclave.

In March, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched military operations in Al-Shifa Hospital and in the western part of Khan Yunis where Al-Amal Hospital is located. The IDF insists that it aims to eliminate terrorist infrastructure while Al-Shifa Hospital is being used by radical Palestinian movement Hamas "to conduct terrorist activity." On March 22, the Gaza Strip’s Health Ministry said that about 240 civilians were on the hospital’s premises.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria. On December 1, the IDF accused Hamas of violating a ceasefire in effect since November 24 and announced renewed fighting in the Gaza Strip.