The Israeli military has released a video that is said to show a tunnel shaft belonging to the radical Islamic Hamas on the grounds of the Al-Shifa Clinic. A vehicle with many weapons was also seized.
Israel’s army says it has uncovered a tunnel belonging to the Islamist Hamas on the site of the largest clinic in the Gaza Strip. The military released a video on Thursday evening that appears to show the shaft between buildings at Al-Shifa Hospital.
An army spokesman said soldiers had “discovered the entrance to a tunnel at Al-Shifa Hospital and military engineers are currently excavating the infrastructure at the site.” The soldiers would search each floor “building by building.”
A booby-trapped vehicle containing a large quantity of weapons, ammunition and handcuffs was also discovered at the site, it was reported. The army suspects that it was prepared for the Hamas massacre on October 7th in Israel and the hostage-taking.
This information cannot be independently verified. Neither does the Israeli account, according to which Hamas’ central command center is located beneath the clinic. The US government also supports the claim that Hamas and another militant Islamist group use hospitals in the Gaza Strip for military purposes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that hostages could also have been held in the Al-Shifa clinic. “We had concrete evidence that they were being held at Shifa Hospital, which is one of the reasons we entered the hospital,” he told the CBS Evening News. “If they were there, they were taken out.”
Bodies recovered
The Israeli military said this morning that it had recovered the body of a female soldier held captive by Hamas in a building near the hospital. It had already confirmed the woman’s death on Tuesday after Hamas released a video of her alive, followed by images that Hamas said showed her body after she was said to have been killed in an Israeli attack .
Yesterday the army announced that it had recovered the body of a hostage in a building neighboring the clinic. The dead woman was reportedly brought to Israel and identified there. She was kidnapped from the Israeli border town of Beeri on October 7th during the Hamas massacre.
In the middle of the week, the Israeli military had already entered the hospital and then presented several weapons that soldiers were said to have found in the hospital.
Al-Al-Shifa Hospital is located in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
Tunnels and weapons in other hospitals too
The Israeli military also reported that a tunnel was discovered in Rantisi Hospital. It had also announced a few days ago that hostages may have been held in the basement of Rantisi Hospital. The army also found weapons there at the time. Rantisi Hospital specializes in treating children with cancer.
Weapons and ammunition were also found in the Al-Kuds Hospital. The military released photos of the finds. The information could not initially be independently verified.