Israeli forces continue to search the hospital, where they say they discovered weapons and the entrance to a basement from which Hamas operated.
A “death zone”. After a brief visit under the supervision of the Israeli army, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Al-Chifa Hospital in Gaza still had 250 patients and about twenty nurses as of Sunday, December 19. A week after launching a “targeted” military operation inside the walls of the establishment, the largest in the Palestinian enclave, the IDF continued its search on Tuesday to try to uncover a Hamas command post there.
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For weeks, the Jewish state has claimed that the terrorist group responsible for the attacks that killed at least 1,200 people in Israel on October 7 is using Al-Chifa Hospital as an operations center. Enough to justify, according to the army, the ongoing bombings targeting the vast medical complex, which have caused more than 13,000 deaths across the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
It is crucial for Tel Aviv to provide evidence of these allegations, which Hamas has denied since the beginning of the conflict. The Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory, prohibits any military operation against hospitals unless they are used to carry out “acts harmful to the enemy.”. However, the elements put forward by the IDF so far are finding it difficult to convince the international community.
A reenactment of the weapons found in the hospital
On October 27, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broadcast a broadcast on the social network A video showing a 3D model of the underground areas beneath Al-Chifa Hospital from which Hamas is said to operate. The images show meeting rooms and a command center, connected by tunnels. On the same day, an Israeli army spokeswoman also released audio recordings and photos that she said proved that the Hamas compound had an entrance to one of the medical wards. The White House backed up those allegations in mid-November, saying the terror group was likely using the facility to hide weapons, France 24 reported.
According to the news channel, Hamas has consistently denied these allegations, which were also refuted by the hospital’s general director. However, on Thursday, November 16, the IDF released the first elements supporting this thesis. In a seven-minute video filmed at 12:00 p.m. on November 15, according to Libération, an IDF spokesman shows several rooms in the hospital. In particular, it shows the contents of a bag discovered behind an MRI machine that contained an assault rifle, “cartridges, grenades and a uniform.”
Watch LTC (res.) Jonathan Conricus reveal the countless Hamas weapons discovered by IDF troops in the Shifa Hospital MRT building: pic.twitter.com/5qssP8z1XQ
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 15, 2023
“[Cela] confirms without a doubt that Hamas is systematically using hospitals for its military operations in violation of international law. And what we found is, in my opinion, just the tip of the iceberg,” says the soldier. A dozen assault rifles and cartridges, a few grenades, bulletproof vests… The arsenal found, depicted in several published photos about the Israeli army However, according to several observers quoted by Libération, the site is “insignificant”.
The IDF also assures that the video was shot in one go “without editing.” However, Libération noted that it was a cut. This was also announced by a reporter from the New York Times X that the video was deleted and then republished on the social network, with the second version edited to remove a passage that showed a photo of an Israeli hostage appearing on a computer screen.
The entrance to a tunnel is located
Other elements have also raised doubts among some observers. On the evening of November 15th, teams from the BBC and Fox News were able to visit these rooms of the Al-Chifa Hospital, which is under the control of the Israeli army. Images captured by these two television stations show a second assault rifle in the bag discovered behind the MRI machine. Enough to suspect a possible staging, emphasizes Libération.
According to the team from the Franceinfo program “Vrai ou Faux”, which contacted the BBC, the British media explains that “between the filming of the IDF video and its report, the Israeli army discovered new weapons that had been planted would be there afterwards. American journalists from Fox News “could not independently verify where and when the objects were found on site.” “We have no reason to doubt that these weapons belonged to Hamas,” explains our journalist Louis Augry. But here it is clear that the Israeli army does not hesitate to rearrange the premises before the arrival of the journalists so that the signs of Hamas are visible. “Presence appears obvious.”
After its raid on Al-Chifa Hospital, the IDF initially provided no evidence of the existence of a network of tunnels under the hospital complex. However, on Friday, November 17, Israeli authorities revealed a photo showing the entrance to an underground tunnel at the site. CNN, which was able to tour the site on Saturday with Israeli soldiers watching, describes “a ladder hanging at the edge of the opening” and what appears to be the post of a “spiral staircase.” “The tunnel went much deeper than we could see,” explains the American canal, which was unable to penetrate the tunnel.
An image released by the Israeli army on November 17, 2023 purportedly shows the entrance to a Hamas tunnel under Al-Chifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. (ISRAELI ARMY / AFP)
Two days later, the army released two videos showing the inside of this tunnel. She claims it was discovered after the controlled explosion of a vehicle bomb that was located in a hospital hangar, the Guardian reports. According to the IDF, the underground filmed by a robot is ten meters deep and extends over a length of 55 meters. At the end there is an armored door “which is used by Hamas terrorists to prevent Israeli forces from entering the command center,” the Israeli army further assures. The RFI verification unit confirms that the entrance to the tunnel is actually on the hospital premises.
Unauthenticated hostage videos
Israeli authorities also released video surveillance images of the facility from Oct. 7 on Sunday. According to an army spokesman, they show hostages captured by Hamas during attacks against the Jewish state. In particular, we see an injured man surrounded by several people, some of whom are armed. This “proves that Al-Chifa Hospital was used as infrastructure by terrorists,” the IDF spokesman said.
Hamas claims to have brought hostages injured by Israeli attacks to the facility for treatment, NBC reports. Using archive photos, the American broadcaster was able to confirm that one of the videos was filmed on the reception level of Al-Chifa Hospital. However, she “cannot verify the accuracy of the date shown on the videos, the time of recording or the person appearing in these images.” Currently, no other media is able to independently authenticate these videos.
The Israeli army said on Monday that it was continuing its search operations to uncover the Hamas underground complex. “For the specific case of Al-Chifa Hospital, we do not have what appears to be sufficient evidence of the famous network that Israel has been talking about for weeks. All we have are these videos, these images that come to us from a single human source, that of the Israeli army,” emphasized our journalist Louis Augry on Friday, explaining the doubts that still remain about the Revelations from Tel Aviv are floating. “We have to remember that we are in wartime communication here and that it deserves an explanation.”