ISRAEL says it killed a Hamas commander who held a thousand terrified Palestinian civilians hostage inside a children's hospital.
It comes as Israel Defence Forces have been engaged in "significant battles" with Hamas inside bomb-blitzed Gaza City while tens of thousands struggle to flee the fighting.
This morning, the IDF said they ordered a successful fighter jet strike on Ahmed Siam, the terror commander of Hamas’s Nasser-Radwan company.
Two days ago, Siam reportedly attempted to trap some 1,000 Palestinians inside the Al-Rantisi children's hospital in northern Gaza.
The IDF said Siam was killed while hiding at the al-Buraq school in Gaza City, along with other Hamas operatives under his command.
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“Ahmed Siam demonstrates once again that Hamas uses the civilians of the Gaza Strip as human shields for terror purposes,” it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops were engaged in “significant battles with Hamas terrorists" inside the dense and ruinous hellscape of Gaza City.
The IDF reported that two brigades of tanks and infantry have been carrying out risky raids in the southern part of Gaza City’s Sheikh Ijlin neighbourhood.
The IDF says its forces killed numerous Hamas operatives and blitzed their terror infrastructure including tunnel shafts, rocket launchers, weapons depots and observation posts.
It has been five weeks since Hamas launched their bloody cross-border killing spree on Israel that left 1,200 slaughtered, mostly civilians, and over 200 taken hostage.
In retaliation, Israeli troops have now surrounded Gaza City and are destroying Hamas targets neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood.
Their relentless bombardment and ground offensive into the Gaza Strip have forced millions of Palestinians to flee their homes.
Huge swaths of Gaza have been reduced to rubble as hospitals face power cuts and food, fuel and water are nearing empty as a result of Israel’s siege.
So far, more than 11,000 people - including 4,500 children - are said to have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
In scenes unthinkable a few weeks ago, Palestinian refugees were witnessed shouting anti-Hamas insults at a UN shelter on Friday.
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They publicly took out their anger at their iron fist rulers over the slaughter, misery and bloodshed their October 7 attacks caused.
Israel faced growing calls today to protect civilians in Gaza as combat with Hamas intensified around hospitals, which are largely filled with Palestinians seeking refuge from the carnage.
The IDF confirmed it is operating in the vicinity of all hospitals in northern Gaza, but claimed Hamas operatives are deliberately hiding inside the medical facilities.
Israeli troops are reported to be advancing on Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest, where thousands of refugees are sheltering.
Live footage of the area appeared to show intense fighting and gun battles close to the hospital with the constant sounds of explosions.
A surgeon told the BBC that the intensive care unit was struck and is damaged and that two patients on ventilators, including a newborn baby, have died.
On Friday, dramatic footage emerged that appeared to show an Israel airstrike blitzing a Hamas terror headquarters as they carried out "pressure cooker" bombings dangerously close to the Indonesian Hospital.
The IDF denied targeting the hospital, but Hamas claimed it suffered a direct hit and led to casualties.
Also on Friday, the ex-Israeli ambassador to the UK told The Sun that Israel cares "much more" about civilians in Gaza than Hamas ever has.
Mark Regev has accused Hamas of trapping civilians within the battlefield and using them as human shields to "protect the terrorist machine".
"[Hamas] have been saying: 'Don't go! Stay! Become martyrs for our crazy cause!'"
He continued: "They've also not just done that in words, but they've put up physical roadblocks, and at gunpoint prevented people from fleeing.
"Israel cares much more about the fate of Gaza civilians than Hamas does, who's willing to have them all die."
Meanwhile, the IDF says it carried out airstrikes and artillery shelling on numerous Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon in response to rockets fired on northern Israel earlier.
Footage showed giant explosions at several sites belonging to the Iran-backed terror group, who continue to pin Israeli troops to the north with daily border clashes.
However, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said there has been "an upgrade" in the group's operations with Israel and their front on the southern border will "remain active", as reported by Sky News.
It comes as damning proof was shown to The Sun yesterday that Hamas terror chiefs who masterminded Israel's 9/11 used a devastating cache of weapons supplied by Iran.
Inside a secret military base in southern Israel, their arsenal of evil was laid bare - including AK-47s, warheads, hand grenades, mines, improvised explosive devices, timers and “suicide drones”.
