Operation Swords of Iron: What happened on Day 12?

US President Joe Biden pledged to do everything possible to secure the release of over 200 people held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, including some US citizens.

“There is no higher priority than the release and safe return of all these hostages,” Biden said during a one-day solidarity mission to Israel.

The IDF was instructed not to attack Hamas sites in Gaza during Biden's arrival in Israel, according to KAN.

A security source told KAN that the IDF will still thwart rocket launchers or terrorists.

Iran mobilized its media in the region to exploit the explosion at a hospital in Gaza on October 17 to increase threats to Israel and the US. 

Protesters in Iran, Lebanon and other countries were likely guided and exploited by these reports which falsely portrayed the explosion as Israel’s fault. 

Iran uses incendiary language in portraying the attack. For instance, Iran’s Fars News media described the blast at the hospital as the “real Holocaust.” The report in Iranian media, which is close to the IRGC, called Israel a “demonic” regime and accused it of being a “Zionist child-killing” country. 

Members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should sanction and implement an oil embargo on Israel, in addition to expelling Israeli ambassadors, the Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Wednesday according to a statement shared by Iran's foreign ministry.

An urgent meeting of the OIC was taking place on Wednesday in the Saudi city of Jeddah for Islamic countries to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian war.

The international community "must protect innocent civilians and punish Hamas", Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said on Wednesday, commenting on the Gaza hospital strike in which hundreds of people died.

Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that controls Gaza, has blamed the blast on Israel. Israel says it was a result of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group in the enclave.

Statements by PM Netanyahu and US President Biden https://t.co/0ClOYq7J8S

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 18, 2023

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday that Germany wants to support Egypt's efforts to de-escalate tensions following Hamas' attack on Israel during a meeting with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo.

"Together with Egypt, we want to work to alleviate the terrible consequences of the war," said Scholz, adding that they also discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Wednesday that forced displacement of Palestinians cannot be implemented.

He said that Palestinians could be moved to the Negev desert in Israel "till militants are dealt with."

Israel's Civil Aviation Authority banned the usage and flight of drones on Wednesday for recreational purposes throughout the country.

The ban is intended to reduce the danger of misidentification of the drone by security forces as a hostile drone in this tense period, as well as to reduce the risk to aircraft from the Air Force, Israel Police, and medical evacuation forces.

The IDF shared on Wednesday morning an audio transcript of Hamas terrorists discussing the rocket attack by the Islamic Jihad that hit a hospital in Gaza the night before.

In the audio, the Hamas terrorists acknowledge that the shrapnel of the missile "are local pieces, and not Israeli shrapnel."

The audio transcript can be seen in the X post below:

LISTEN: The IDF releases audio of a conversation between Hamas terrorists discussing the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's failed launch that hit the Gaza hospital.

Read the full transcript below: https://t.co/jRYULHspeK pic.twitter.com/eWYSHHubAZ

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) October 18, 2023

Audio transcript translated into English

The conversation between the two terrorists was translated into English goes as follows:

What?

They are saying this was Islamic Jihad.

That this was from us?

It seems that it was from us, yes.

Who is saying this?

They are saying that the shrapnel of the missile are local pieces and not Israeli shrapnel.

What are they saying [there]?

My god, from us, it didn't just explode, but in a hospital!

They may have fired from the cemetery behind.

What?

It seems that they fired this from the cemetery behind the hospital, and it failed and landed on the hospital.

There is a cemetery behind it?

Yes, it is right in its area!

Where is it exactly? When you enter the general courtyard area?

When you enter the courtyard area, so that you do not continue towards the city, but instead from the right side, that is where the hospital is.