Israel’s security forces claim to have discovered a Hamas-operated tunnel that leads to a hospital in Gaza amid criticism that their ground operations have left medical facilities inoperative in the blockaded strip.
The tunnel is next to the house of a Hamas operative who heads the naval operations of Hamas that led the October 7 raids on Israel, said a military spokesperson.
Rantisi hospital is only 200 yards (183 metres) away, said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, as he sought to prove the accusations that the Palestinian Hamas group has been operating from hospitals.
“Inside these tunnels, Hamas terrorists hide, operate and hold Israeli hostages against their will,” said the Israel Security Forces on X, formerly Twitter.
The tunnel is electrified with the help of solar panels and leads to a bulletproof and explosives-proof door about 20 metres down the ground level, he said. “It looks like a hard and clear evidence that the hospital is connected,” he added.
The tunnel remains covered so that no one can find it and the hospital is next to a school and an UN building, the Israeli forces said.
The military spokesperson then enters the basement of the hospital where he finds “operational gears” of the Hamas in a room, including explosive body vests, hand grenades, Kalashnikov rifles, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).
“Hamas is using hospitals…people shooting RPGs from hospitals. This is Hamas. The world has to understand who is Israel fighting against,” he asserted.
Hostages were brought from across the Gaza border on bike and held hostage in this basement, he claimed, pointing to a bike with bullet marks. Women’s clothes, ropes tied to a chair, diapers, and a feeding bottle in the basement added to the “suspicion for areas where hostages were held”.
A makeshift washroom complete with a commode and ventilation were also found there. “We see infrastructure like toilets, showers and a small kitchen provided the terrorists their needs,” he said.
He further claimed that a roster in Arabic on the wall of a room mentioned “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”, the name given to the October 7 Hamas attack, and the shifts of Hamas operatives.
Fact-checker Mohammed Zubair has refuted this claim and said the text in Arabic was nothing but the days of the week.
Israel also claimed its forces were transporting incubators from hospitals in Gaza to Al-Shifa, but later deleted the social media post. In a fresh post, they claimed are in the process of coordinating the transfer of incubators from a hospital in Israel to Gaza.
Hospitals have become the latest focal point of Israel-Hamas fight in Gaza. At least six babies and nine patients have died due to fuel shortages in hospitals and all hospitals in northern Gaza are now “out of service”, said the Hamas-run health ministry yesterday. This includes the Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in the blockaded strip.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains grim with hundreds of patients trapped in the hospital without electricity and water, besides thousands others who have taken shelter in those complexes.
US President Joe Biden has urged Israel to protect the Al-Shifa hospital.
