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.
At least seven migrants have died, including one boy, one girl and two women, after their boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos, Greece's coastguard said on Thursday.
The death toll from Myanmar's devastating earthquake has surpassed 3,000, with hundreds more missing, as forecasts of unseasonal rain presented a new challenge for rescue and aid workers trying to reach people in a country riven by civil war.
Russian forces unleashed an hour-long barrage of drones on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, late on Wednesday, triggering a number of fires but causing no casualties in the second such attack in the course of the day, the regional governor said.
Hamas decided not to respond or engage with Israel's counter-proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, an official told Reuters on Wednesday, affirming it is committed to the mediators' plan instead.
Israel launched airstrikes on military airbases and infrastructure sites in the Syrian cities of Damascus, Hama and Homs on Wednesday, the Israeli military said.