Israel Raids Gaza Hospital

Israel's military said 20 Palestinian militants were killed and scores detained during a raid on Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital that targeted "senior Hamas militants".

Soldiers rolled in with tanks and air strikes hit the area around the Hamas-ruled territory's biggest medical center, a complex crowded with patients and displaced people.

"During the operation we arrested more than 200 suspected militants and they are currently in investigation," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel's military spokesman, said in a televised statement.

"We eliminated more than 20 militants inside the hospital complex" and another 20 "in the area surrounding the hospital", Hagari said.

Among the dead was Fayq al-Mabhouh, who Hagari said was "head of special operations at the Hamas internal security organization". A Gaza police source confirmed his death, saying Mabhouh was a brigadier general in the force.

The latest military operation around the hospital -- which was raided by Israeli troops before, in November, sparking an international outcry -- triggered alarm from the World Health Organization.

Israel has repeatedly said the complex housed an underground Hamas control base, a claim denied by the militants.

Most of Gaza's hospitals are no longer functioning, according to the United Nations.

In January Israel's army said it had "completed the dismantling" of Hamas's command structure in the northern Gaza Strip, where Al-Shifa is located.

The military has carried out operations at other hospitals in Gaza since war broke out on October 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel from Gaza.

The unprecedented attack resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians.

Israel has carried out a relentless bombing campaign and ground offensive that Gaza's health ministry says has killed at least 31,726 people, most of them women and children.