By Ronen Zvulun
GAZA (Reuters) – The Israeli military confirmed a strengthened tunnel beside Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza on Wednesday, full with a rest room, kitchen and an air conditioned assembly room that it stated had served as a command publish for Hamas fighters.
The tunnel shaft, some two meters (6-1/2 toes) excessive, was accessed by way of an out of doors shaft within the hospital complicated grounds, which have been as soon as crowded with tens of hundreds of Palestinian civilians the military stated had served as a human defend from struggle.
“That is the way in which that they survive as a result of they use the hospital as a human defend that protects them,” stated Colonel Elad Tsuri, commander of an Israeli armoured brigade that discovered the tunnel. “And right here they’ll keep for a very long time. There’s a room with air-con inside.”
Israel has lengthy accused Hamas of utilizing the Shifa hospital complicated as a command and management middle as a part of a wider technique that seeks to cover its forces among the many civilian inhabitants.
Hamas and hospital officers have denied the accusation and the hospital web site has been on the centre of accusations of struggle crimes on each side, with Palestinians accusing Israel of focusing on hospitals and Israel saying the websites have been getting used to shelter armed fighters.
Journalists have been pushed in Israeli navy autos to the hospital complicated within the northern Gaza Strip previous a panorama of buildings destroyed or vacated throughout Israel’s practically seven-week-old invasion of the Palestinian enclave.
Graced with arches, the tunnel was a well-built construction lined with stone and concrete. Military escorts used flashlights to light up the way in which in the dead of night and confirmed a small kitchen, a rest room outfitted with a bathroom and sink behind a closed door, in addition to a room giant sufficient for conferences with two steel beds.
“We assume that there’s one other manner out that they ready. It isn’t open but and we’re positive that there are methods to town from right here,” Tsuri stated. He stated the military knew the tunnel led to a different opening in a Gaza kindergarten.
Israel has confronted worldwide criticism for its Gaza marketing campaign, together with its assaults on Shifa, the enclave’s largest hospital. Medical officers say Israel has killed round 13,000 individuals within the strip since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel wherein Israel says 1,200 individuals have been killed and 240 taken hostage.
Exterior on the bottom, the military confirmed scores of weapons, grenades and different explosives that navy spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari stated had been collected in current days contained in the hospital, a motor residence and close by vehicles.
He stated the physique of 1 hostage, Noa Marciano, 19, had been recovered by the military exterior a close-by medical clinic. Hamas earlier launched a video saying she had died in an Israeli air strike. It was unimaginable to confirm the declare.
In Washington, the White Home has stated its impartial intelligence supported Israel’s declare that Hamas was utilizing Gaza’s hospitals, together with Shifa, to cover command posts.
Hamas responded on the time: “The White Home and the Pentagon’s adoption of the false (Israeli) narrative, claiming that the resistance is utilizing Al Shifa medical complicated for navy functions, was a inexperienced gentle for the occupation (Israel) to commit extra massacres in opposition to civilians.”
However Hagari, referring to Hamas’ use of a hideout beneath the hospital, stated: “The world now ought to say what occurred in Shifa, what occurred within the hospitals, is a struggle crime.”
(Reporting by Ronen Zvulun; Writing by Howard Goller; Modifying by James Mackenzie and Daniel Wallis)
