The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed intelligence Friday showing that the Palestinian Hamas terror organization uses hospitals to hide its facilities and to hoard fuel that it denies to the civilians of the Gaza Strip.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari of the IDF Spokesperson’s office said in a briefing released to journalists: “Hamas is cynically using hospitals as a shield for its underground terror complex.”
He described “underground metro tunnels” build by Hamas beneath Gaza City and elsewhere in the Strip, noting that key nodes were usually based near sensitive sites like schools, United Nations facilities and hospitals.
“Hamas wages war from hospitals,” Hagari said. It “not only endangers the lives of Israeli civilians but also exploits the lives of innocent Gaza civilians as human shields.”
Hagari then presented videos showing the layout of Hamas facilities at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and an animation describing the Hamas bunkers underneath the hospital.
Israel Defense ForceIsrael Defense ForceHe emphasized that the latter was just an illustration and that Israel would not reveal its actual videos of the underground complex.
Shifa Hospital has long been known to act as a refuge for Hamas leaders, ever since the first conflict, known in Israel as Operation Cast Lead, in 2008-9. It has also used the hospital to torture and kill political dissidents, according to a report by Amnesty International — hardly a pro-Israel organization — in 2015.
Hamas denied the IDF’s allegations Friday, according to the Times of Israel, claiming that Israel was simply tying to establish a pretext for bombing a hospital as it supposedly at the Al-Ahlt Baptist Hospital (which was actually hit by an errant Palestinian rocket and not by an Israeli airstrike).
Hagari emphasized that Shifa was just “one of many” hospitals abused by Hamas to protect its leaders, weapons, and infrastructure “precisely because they know the IDF distinguishes between terrorists and civilians.”
He also played a recording between a Palestinian energy official in Gaza and an IDF officer in which the Palestinian official said that Hamas was hoarding fuel and that those with the right connections could obtain it.
Israel has resisted international pressure to allow fuel into the Gaza Strip, arguing that Hamas will simply seize it and that there would be enough fuel in the territory for civilian needs, if Hamas were to distribute it.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
