In a significant development, Israel has claimed that the Hamas terror group’s main base of operations is under Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, providing visuals and intercepted audio as evidence of the terror organization’s activities.

 

 

This came after IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari addressing the reporters of international media outlets, said that Hamas has several underground complexes under Shifa. Notably, it is the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip that are used by the terror group’s leaders to direct attacks against Israel.

 

Hagari said Israel has intelligence that there are several tunnels leading to the underground base from outside the hospital so that Hamas officials do not need to enter the hospital to reach it. But Hagari added that there is also an entrance to the underground complex from within one of the wards.

 

"Right now, terrorists move freely in Shifa Hospital, and other hospitals in Gaza," Hagari said.

 

The military spokesperson said Israel has "concrete evidence" that "hundreds of terrorists flooded into the hospital to hide" following the October 7 massacre, in which some 2,500 terrorists burst through the border under cover of a deluge of rockets, and rampaged through more than 20 communities near the Gaza Strip. They killed some 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, massacring them in their homes and at an outdoor music festival. They also abducted over 220 people to the Strip as hostages.

 

 

According to the IDF, Hamas’s internal security also has a command center inside Shifa Hospital, from which it directs rocket fire on Israel and stores weapons. The hospital’s energy infrastructure is also used by Hamas’s underground base, Hagari said, accusing the terror group of using the hospital and its occupants, with 1,500 beds and some 4,000 staff, as human shields.

 

The information on Hamas’s use of the hospital is based on a wide range of intelligence sources collected by the Military Intelligence Directorate and Shin Bet security agency. "Hamas wages war from hospitals" in Gaza, Hagari told journalists, adding that the terror group was also using fuel stored in hospitals to help carry out its operations.

 

 

The military spokesperson asserted that Hamas is stealing fuel from civilians in Gaza. Israel has blocked the entrance of fuel into the Strip since the war started, so he appeared to be referring to fuel that was already in the Strip. "There is fuel in hospitals in Gaza, and Hamas is using it for its terror infrastructure," he said, playing a recording that he said was a conversation between a pair of Gazan residents who make the revelation.