This handout satellite picture shows the damage around the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City's al-Rimal district (AFP)
Israeli forces are carrying out a "precise and targeted" military operation against Hamas "in a specific area" inside the Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City.
The army said in a statement the operation is "based on intelligence information and operational necessities".
The IDF forces "include medical teams and Arabic speakers who have undergone specific training to prepare for this complex and sensitive environment, with the aim of not causing any harm to civilians who are used by Hamas as human shields".
The statement came shortly after the spokesman for the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that Israel had informed officials that it would raid the Al-Shifa Hospital complex in the coming minutes.
On Tuesday, the US accused Hamas of running a "command and control center based from Al-Shifa Hospital."
Hamas has, however, denied militarising hospitals.
Medical officials in Gaza say more than 11,000 people are confirmed dead from Israeli strikes, around 40 per cent of them children, and countless others were trapped under rubble.
There is no evidence indicating that the two suspects involved in the Bondi Beach attack received any form of military training while in the Philippines, the country's National Security Adviser said on Wednesday.
At least 12 people were killed and three others abducted when gunmen attacked a mining site in Atoso village in Nigeria's restive Plateau state, a local group leader said on Wednesday.
Russia launched a "massive" drone attack on Ukraine's central Cherkasy region, injuring six people and triggering a blackout in part of Cherkasy city, the local governor said on Thursday.
The United Nations and aid groups have warned on Wednesday that humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territories, particularly Gaza, were at risk of collapse if Israel does not lift impediments that include a "vague, arbitrary, and highly politicised" registration process.