Thanks again to Mike Claydon for keeping us fully informed about the Israel-Gaza war. You can always receive these reports and more by subscribing to Mike’s Israel Report.

Israel Report Editor; Mike Claydonisraelreport@mail.com

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

Israel Seizes Control Of Hamas Parliament; Israeli Defence Minister: ‘Hamas Has Lost Control Of Gaza’………………

IDF Chief Spokesman Brigadier General Daniel Hagari revealed late Monday night an underground Hamas command centre under the Rantisi Hospital which not only contained suicide vests, rocket-propelled grenades, and a variety of weapons but also signs, such as baby bottles, that Hamas had held Israeli hostages there.

He said there was evidence and independent separate intelligence that Hamas terrorists had returned directly to the hospital after their attacks and mass murders of Israelis on October 7.

Next, he noted that an IDF robot found additional terror tunnels, including electricity being siphoned off from the hospital for use by the terrorists underground.

Hagari showed a motorcycle with a bullet hole inside it and items connected to one of the hostages in the vicinity of the motorcycle  One of the chairs showed ropes and other items indicating that a hostage had been held there.

A baby bottle and other baby materials were found which the IDF said were connected to a hostage baby. There were also improvised toilets, which Hagari said was infrastructure to hold hostages. A list on a board marked the days since October 7, possibly indicating when the terrorists left, likely with hostages.

He said he was not sure if the terrorists used the evacuation to escape or used additional networks of underground tunnels.

Israel says the terror group Hamas has finally lost control of Gaza. However, as the tide turns in the Gaza Strip, are things about to erupt up along the northern border? Is a cataclysmic showdown with Iranian proxy Hezbollah imminent?

Meanwhile the United States carries out consequential airstrikes in Syria

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) push into Gaza City has reached the gates of Al-Shifa Hospital, where patients are dying with no medicine or fuel to keep life-saving equipment operating and corpses are stacking.

Other hospitals in the city are facing the same dire circumstances. Israel, which maintains some of these hospitals are used by Hamas as military headquarters, has yet to green light a direct assault inside the main Gaza health facilities.

Such attacks could add to the mounting casualties at a time when Israel is under tremendous international pressure to stop the fighting on humanitarian grounds. Storming the hospitals could also imperil ongoing hostage negotiations although talks are continuing and an offer a 70 person release is being offered for a longer pause in the fighting.

Doctors Without Borders, a charitable organization, said that in addition to the horrific situation inside the hospital, civilians have been killed trying to leave, either through Israeli bombardment or snipers. We cannot independently verify that claim.IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari on Sunday said the hospital is not under siege and that it is working with hospital staff to provide a safe passage for Gazans wishing to leave. The IDF also said it tried to provide fuel to the hospital, but that Hamas would not allow officials there to accept it.

An image appeared on social media purporting to be damaged Israeli equipment outside of al-Shifa. again we cannot independently verify where or when it was taken.

Other hospitals in Gaza are under fire as well.

The IDF says it opened fire on Hamas fighters at the Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City who mingled among civilians and fired on Israel troops.

“During operations carried out by the 188th Brigade, RPG fire and small arms fire were directed at the soldiers from the direction of the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City,” the IDF said. “The shooting was carried out by a terrorist squad that had embedded itself within a group of civilians at the entrance of the hospital. The soldiers identified a terrorist squad with two RPG launchers amongst the civilians. As a result of the shooting carried out by the terrorists, a tank was damaged.”

As the IDF forces fired at the Hamas fighters, “civilians were seen leaving the hospital building, and other terrorists who came out of adjacent buildings hid among them and joined the attempted attack. After the terrorists fired RPGs, they returned to hide in the hospital.”

The 188th Brigade combat team, with Air Force assistance, responded with firepower. “During the incident, approximately 21 terrorists were killed and there were no casualties to our forces,” the IDF said. “This incident is another example of Hamas’ continued abuse of civilian structures, including hospitals, to carry out attacks.”The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said an evacuation convoy to Al-Quds had to turn back because of “relentless bombardment” and the “dangerous situation where the hospital is located in Tel Al-Hawa. The medical team, patients, and their families; remain besieged in the Hospital with no food, water, or electricity.”

The PRCS on Sunday said the hospital was “no longer operational” due to the “depletion of available fuel and power outage.”

At the al-Ahli Hospital, site of an October 17 explosion that killed many Arab Palestinians, patients are dying due to lack of medical capabilities, including specialized surgical teams, medical supplies and blood, according to Fadel Naim, head of orthopaedic surgery at the hospital .The IDF said soldiers from its Harel Reserve Brigade captured the al-Karameh area in northern Gaza, apparently named after a local hospital.  According to the IDF, during the raids, the troops destroyed Hamas infrastructure in the area, including long-range rocket launchers aimed at Israel, anti-tank missile launch positions, tunnels, and observation posts.

The IDF on Monday said its troops from Flotilla 13 (special forces) and the 401st Brigade Combat Team found indications that Hamas was using the Rantisi hospital as a military facility.

“On the basement floor, a room was found with signs indicating hostages were held there,” the IDF said on Telegram. Troops also found “an underground headquarters and a room full of weapons inside the hospital,” the IDF said.IDF troops also “uncovered an operational tunnel shaft, which leads to the area of ​​the home of a senior naval commander.”

A US official with knowledge of American intelligence says Hamas has a command node under Al-Shifa hospital and uses fuel intended for it. In addition, Hamas fighters regularly cluster in and around Gaza’s largest hospital, CNN reported Monday.

The information comes after comments made Sunday by a top White House official that Hamas is using hospitals and civilian facilities.

“You can see even from open-source reporting that Hamas does use hospitals, along with a lot of other civilian facilities, for command-and-control, for storing weapons, for housing its fighters,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN’s State of the Union. “Without getting into this specific hospital or that specific claim, this is Hamas’ track record, both historically and in this conflict.”

Those claims line up with what Tomer Israeli, a former member of “Shin Bet” (Israeli Secret Service), a former captain in the Israeli Army Special Forces Sayeret Matkal, has said about Al-Shifa Hospital. He talked about the facility in an article about the challenges Israel faces in any hostage rescue efforts.

“It’s a very busy hospital, but Hamas is using their own patients and civilians as a human shield. Basically, under the hospital, they have the headquarters of the Hamas regime, the Hamas army is headquartered there. Everything is under al-Shifa Hospital.”  said he.

The 27 European Union nations have jointly condemned Hamas for what they described as the use of hospitals and civilians as “human shields” during this war.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Monday that at the same time the bloc asked Israel “for maximum restraint in targeting in order to avoid human casualties,” The Associated Press reported.

At a meeting of the bloc’s foreign affairs ministers, Borrell brandished a statement he issued on behalf of the 27 nations as a show of unity following weeks of often contrasting statements on how the group should address the war.

Hamas “strongly” rejected and denounced Borrell’s statement, calling it an “attempt to distort the facts by submitting to the false occupation narrative that claims that Hamas is using hospitals and civilians as human shields. We consider it a cover for the occupation to commit more massacres against children and defenceless civilians, and we call on Borrell to immediately retract those shameful statements. And inhumanity.” [??]

“These dangerous statements ignore all the pictures, testimonies, facts, and international reports, which confirm that the occupation army killed more than 11,000 martyrs, the vast majority of whom were women and children, through its deliberate targeting of civilians, in their homes, shelter centres, schools, and internationally protected hospitals, for the purpose of terrorizing and displacing them. Forcibly from their lands, in a crime of genocide, he spoke in audio and video before the eyes and ears of the world.”

Having reached the gates of Al-Shifa is an inflection point for Israel.

“This will be our only opportunity to finish off as much of Hamas’s underground network as we can,” says one of the officers, referring to the group’s 500km-long tunnel system, an IDF officer told The Economist in a story reported Monday. “We don’t know how long we have to operate and we need to make the most of it while we can.”

The IDF has “reached a point in its campaign where the Israeli government’s stated objectives—to destroy Hamas’s military infrastructure and to rescue the 239 hostages still held in Gaza—are in increasing tension,” said the publication, reporting from an IDF command centre.

The main reason for the Israeli war cabinet’s reluctance to enter the hospitals “is the hope of reaching an agreement with Hamas on the release of a large number of hostages,” according to The Economist. “Israel is holding out for at least a hundred. In return Israel would free some Palestinian prisoners—it holds 4,450 of them in its jails—and allow more supplies, including fuel, into Gaza.”

As we have previously reported, indirect hostage negotiations are ongoing in Qatar and Egypt.

The final say, however, will go to the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who is Israel’s prime target.

“It is unclear whether any deal would postpone the IDF’s attempt to destroy any Hamas’s facilities near or below the hospital; it seems unlikely to abandon it,” The Economist wrote. “As the tense negotiations continue, Israel is trying to urge as many as possible of the remaining civilians inside Gaza City, who are thought to number around 100,000, to leave for the south as well.”

There has been intense shuttle diplomacy, with the head of Mossad visiting Qatar then Egypt and Hamas leaders visiting Egypt as well.A possible deal has been made for Hamas to release around 80 hostages from Gaza in exchange for Arab Palestinian women and teenagers held by Israel, a

Biden administration official told NBC on Sunday.

The hostages held in Gaza that would be released in this deal are women and children. However, it is currently unclear if the deal will go through and the US is still exploring other options, NBC reported.

Netanyahu told NBC on Sunday that there “could be” a potential hostage deal with Hamas but declined to give any further details, saying doing so could thwart the delicate negotiations to free those taken captive by the militant group. “I think the less I say about it, the more I’ll increase the chances that it materializes,” he said in the interview.

In a joint press conference Sunday, Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz “rejected mounting international criticism over the civilian costs of the war.” The three urged Western leaders “to throw their support behind the Jewish state since its victory would mean victory for the entire free world as well,” The Times of Israel reported.

Netanyahu also indicated that Israel would oppose the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Gaza following the war — a goal declaredly sought by Washington. He lambasted the PA as an entity that educates children to want to eliminate Israel, supports terrorism and hasn’t condemned Hamas’s October 7 massacres, which sparked the ongoing war. He also said Israel would retain overall security control in the enclave, the publication reported.Israel is striking elsewhere in Gaza, including Khan Younis, where Arab Palestinians were digging in rubble to find survivors in a destroyed house.  Hamas said it has destroyed Israeli several tanks, troop carriers and other armored vehicles during fierce fighting in Gaza.The northern front continues to be hot, with Israel launching attacks in both Syria and Lebanon.  On Monday, the IDF continued to hit targets in Lebanon.

“Earlier today, terrorists fired toward several locations in northern Israel,” the IDF said. “In response, IDF artillery struck the source of the fire. In addition, the IDF struck launch posts and a terrorist who carried out launches toward Israel. Furthermore, a short while ago, a terrorist cell that attempted to launch anti-tank missiles toward the area of Shtula in northern Israel was struck by an IDF tank.”

With Hezbollah and the Israeli military stepping up cross-border attacks against each other and other Iran-backed militias in Syria, and Iraq striking Americans, Israel and the U.S. are warning about the potential that the war could expand.

Developing……..

---

“None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand”. [Daniel 12;10]