U.S. spy companies consider that Hamas and one other Palestinian group preventing Israel used Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza to command forces and maintain some hostages, in response to new American intelligence declassified on Tuesday.
The hospital was the main focus of a big Israel Protection Forces effort in November to take management of the power, an operation that got here underneath intense worldwide scrutiny and criticism.
Israeli officers stated Hamas had constructed an unlimited complicated underneath the hospital, making it a professional army goal. However critics stated the army operation successfully lower off and shut down a vital a part of Gaza’s medical community with little proof that Hamas was utilizing the hospital as a command submit.
A senior U.S. intelligence official stated on Tuesday that the American authorities continued to consider that Hamas used the hospital complicated and websites beneath it to train command and management actions, retailer weapons and maintain “at the very least just a few hostages.”
American intelligence companies obtained info that Hamas fighters had evacuated the complicated days earlier than the multiday operation, destroying paperwork and electronics as they left, the senior intelligence official stated.
After the operation, the Israeli army took reporters to a shaft on the complicated resulting in a tunnel community. Later, the army confirmed the tunnels beneath the hospital.
White Home officers on the time backed the Israeli evaluation. “We’ve info that confirms that Hamas is utilizing that exact hospital for a command and management node,” John F. Kirby, a Nationwide Safety Council spokesman, stated on Nov. 14.
Within the weeks because the operation, information organizations have continued to boost questions about Hamas’s presence on the hospital. And well being and humanitarian organizations have criticized the Israeli operation. A humanitarian crew lead by the World Well being Group, which visited Al-Shifa instantly after Israeli forces stormed the hospital, known as it a “dying zone.”
However the American intelligence evaluation has remained agency that the hospital was utilized by Hamas. The brand new intelligence represents probably the most present American evaluation, officers stated.
The complicated was utilized by each Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to command forces preventing in opposition to Israel, in response to the intelligence.
Whereas the spy companies offered no visible proof, a U.S. official stated they had been assured of their evaluation as a result of it was primarily based on info collected by Israel and America’s personal intelligence, gathered independently.
Some had hoped that the operation to take the hospital may end result within the rescue of among the hostages taken by Palestinian fighters throughout their Oct. 7 assault on Israel. No hostages had been rescued, however Israeli officers discovered the our bodies of two hostages at or close to the complicated, officers have stated.
The brand new American intelligence evaluation says the Israeli evaluation was at the very least partially appropriate that some hostages had been held at or underneath the complicated. However these hostages seem to have been moved as Hamas evacuated.
