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U.S. intelligence officials provided new details this week to support their assessment in November that Hamas militants were using the al-Shifa hospital complex in the northern Gaza Strip as a command center. This public statement came hours before a controversial Israeli military attack on the complex.
Recently declassified information obtained from U.S. spy agencies shows that militants destroyed documents and electronics at the complex ahead of the Israel Defense Forces raid, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter .
“We have information that continues to support our conclusion that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have used the al-Shifa hospital complex and underlying sites to house command infrastructure, conduct certain command and control activities, store some weapons, and to hold at least a few hostages,” an official said. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is another Gaza-based militant group that is allied with Hamas in the fight against Israel but operates under a separate command.
The U.S. intelligence assessment largely mirrored Israeli military claims that al-Shifa was used as a command post.
Critics said Israel's military operations against the complex, which housed Gaza's largest and most modern medical facility, were disproportionate to the threat posed by militants who may be operating there. At least 40 patients – including four premature babies – died in the days before the raid and after, the United Nations said.
According to the World Health Organization, the hospital is currently functioning at a minimal level.
The intelligence disclosure late Tuesday night follows a Washington Post investigation last month into the civilian damage caused by the IDF's campaign against the hospital complex – the encirclement, siege and eventual raid of the facility and the tunnel beneath it , was in an appropriate relationship to the assessed threat.
The Post's investigation, which included an analysis of open-source images, satellite images and publicly released IDF materials, found, among other things, that rooms connected to the network of tunnels discovered by the IDF showed no immediate evidence of military use Hamas and there was no evidence that access to the tunnels was possible from the medical wards.
Investigating the Israeli military's attack on the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip
The new details recently declassified came from intelligence gathered by U.S. spy agencies after the IDF raid on November 15, officials said. Some of it was collected using technical means, they said.
Officials said in a news release Tuesday evening that Hamas militants had “largely evacuated” the hospital “days earlier” as the IDF approached. Last month, officials told the Post that “Hamas had held the hostages on the hospital grounds until shortly before Israel invaded.”
The details also support statements from National Security Council and Pentagon spokesmen in November that the two militant groups used al-Shifa to conceal and support their military operations, including weapons storage and hostage-taking.
State Department spokesman Matt Miller reiterated last month that the United States had evidence that Hamas was operating beneath the hospital before the Israeli attack. He also addressed widespread criticism that the IDF had not provided sufficient evidence that the hospital was being used as a command post. “I don't think anyone should expect a Hamas command and control center to look like the White House situation room. “It is a terrorist organization that hides underground behind civilians,” Miller said.
While U.S. officials say the intelligence community has “high confidence” in their assessment of Hamas's use of al-Shifa, they have not publicly released any visual or audio evidence. The IDF's claims have also been called into question by the lack of conclusive evidence.
“The US intelligence community is confident in its judgment on this matter and has independently confirmed information” about the use of the hospital complex by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad “for various purposes related to their campaign against Israel,” the first US said -Officer.
Officials would not elaborate on what type of electronics were destroyed, but the action could indicate that the militants were trying to hide their presence or prevent Israel from obtaining equipment useful for intelligence purposes.
As the conflict enters its fourth month, Israel says it is withdrawing some troops from the Gaza Strip, where more than 22,000 people have been killed and more than 57,000 injured in one of the most destructive military campaigns of this century, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel has vowed to end Hamas' rule in Gaza after thousands of militants broke into Israel early on the morning of October 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking more than 230 hostage.
Israeli officials say they have weakened Hamas's capabilities by killing thousands of its fighters, including commanders, and destroying parts of its underground tunnel network. However, the group's most influential figures in Gaza have largely been difficult to find, and the whereabouts of the group's leader, Yehiya Sinwar, appear to be unknown.
John Hudson in Washington contributed to this report.