Operation Iron Swords - Day 11 - 17 October 2023

Palestinian armed group Hamas launched thousands of missiles at Israel and deployed its militants to infiltrate Jewish settlements near the country’s border with Gaza on 07 October 2023. The 1,200 Israelis killed on the first day would be the equivalent of 36,000 Americans killed in an attack, as a proportion to Israel’s population of 9.3 million people (compared to 332 million in the USA). Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated: “Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in one day".

Hamas is ready to release all civilian hostages in the event of a ceasefire, Musa Abu-Marzouk, a member of the Palestinian movement's Politburo, said in an interview with Al-Jazeera. “Yes, if a ceasefire is imposed, we will have no interest in holding these people,” he said, answering a related question. Marzouk also stressed that due to intense Israeli shelling, it is impossible to transport and release the hostages. He noted that this would not be possible without a ceasefire.

Around 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said. More than 12,500 others have been wounded since Israel started bombarding Gaza. Hamas has 200-250 Israeli captives in Gaza, the group’s armed wing’s spokesperson said. The number of Israelis killed in Hamas’s attack and military operation stands at about 1,400, including 286 soldiers.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said at least 500 people have been killed in what it described as an Israeli airstrike on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. According to early reports, people were seeking shelter in the hospital at the time of the blast. "Two hundred to 300 displaced people killed in occupation (Israeli) strikes on the yard" of the hospital in central Gaza, the ministry said. "Hundreds of victims are still under the rubble," it added. According to early reports, people were seeking shelter in the hospital at the time of the blast.

Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh, commenting on the incident, called on Israel to respect the “laws of war” when conducting operations. In turn, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the IDF of shelling the hospital. He also called for a stop to this "unprecedented atrocity." The Turkish Foreign Ministry also called this incident a “barbaric attack”, for which the perpetrators will inevitably be held accountable under international law.

The Israeli military (IDF) initially said it didn’t have details. Israeli sources claimed that the video showed the moment a Hamas rocket flies and explodes in the air above the hospital due to a malfunction. A few seconds after this, an explosion occurs at the Al-Ahly hospital, leading to many casualties. It was difficult to say whether these two events are connected. One of the largest Russian-language Israeli channels announced that a certain “secret ammunition depot” exploded in the hospital due to self-fire by Hamas.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari named the Islamic Jihad group as responsible for the attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of people were killed. "Intelligence from multiple sources that we have indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch that hit a hospital in the Gaza Strip," he said. According to Hagari, an analysis of IDF intelligence indicates that Palestinian fighters fired rockets that flew in close proximity to Al-Ahly Hospital at the time of the strike.

Israel has attacked around 5,000 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip since October 7 and has cancelled a “large number” of other strikes in an effort to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday. Briefing Reuters on condition of anonymity, the official did not elaborate on the number of strikes cancelled during a days-long bombardment of Gaza that has killed around 3,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, saying only that every such operation is “approved at the highest level” of the Israeli military.

Israel’s national security adviser predicted that the United States would get “involved” if the Gaza war escalated to the point where Iran and Hezbollah joined in on behalf of Hamas. In a televised briefing, Tzachi Hanegbi noted expressions of support by President Joe Biden, which included US naval deployments in the Mediterranean and a public warning to the Lebanese group and to Tehran to stay out of the fighting. “He is making clear to our enemies that if they even imagine taking part in the offensive against the citizens of Israel, there will be American involvement here,” Hanegbi said. “Israel will not be alone ... A US force is here and it is ready,” he added, without elaborating.

Iran warned of a possible “preemptive” action against Israel “in the coming hours”, as Israel prepared for a ground offensive on the Gaza Strip. “All possible options and scenarios are there for Hezbollah … Naturally, resistance leaders will not allow the Zionist regime to take any action in Gaza, and when it feels reassured about Gaza, move on to other resistance areas in the region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a live broadcast to state TV late on 16 October 2023, as he referred to his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah the previous day. “Therefore, any preemptive measure is imaginable in the coming hours.”

“If we don’t defend Gaza today, tomorrow we have to defend against these [phosphorus] bombs in the children’s hospital of our own country,” he added, referring to reports by human rights groups that Israel has been using phosphorus bombs in its aerial bombardment of Gaza.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that "no one can stop resistance forces" if Israel keeps up its bombardment of Gaza in response to the shock October 7 attack by Hamas. "If the crimes of the Zionist (Israeli) regime continue, Muslims and resistance forces will become impatient, and no one can stop them," Khamenei said. Israel will face another shock wave by the resistance front if its "atrocities" do not stop in Gaza, a deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying by Iranian state media. "The resistance front's shocks against the Zionist regime (Israel) will continue until this 'cancerous tumour' is eradicated from the world map," said Ali Fadavi. "Another shock wave is on the way, if Israel does not end atrocities in Gaza."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for the protection of civilians after having arrived in Israel for an unannounced visit on Tuesday. Scholz is one of several top politicians to visit the country since the October 7 Hamas attack. Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Scholz said he had talked about how to get humanitarian aid to civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip and would raise the topic with Egypt’s president as well. “Germany and Israel are united in being democratic states, acting in justice and law even in extreme situations ... I have spoken with the prime minister about ways to allow the people in Gaza to receive humanitarian aid as quickly as possible,” Scholz said. “We want to protect civilians and prevent civilian deaths,” he added.

Senior US officials said President Joe Biden will visit Israel on 18 October 2023 to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken disclosed the plan while in Israel on Tuesday, following his talks with Netanyahu and others for the second week in a row. Blinken said Biden will be visiting at a critical moment for Israel, the region and the world. He said the president will reaffirm US solidarity with Israel and discuss strategies to minimize civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Blinken said Biden will also warn Iran and others against escalating the conflict. He said, "President Biden will underscore our crystal clear message to any actor, state or non-state, trying to take advantage of this crisis to attack Israel. Don't." White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that Biden will visit Jordan on the same day after his meeting with Netanyahu. Kirby said the president is due to meet Jordan's King Abdullah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.