Israel's 'Evidence' of Hamas Headquarters Beneath Gaza Hospital Not There: BBC
U.S. has backed Israel's targeting of the hospital facility
Jeremy Bowen, the international editor for the BBC, penned a column Friday that raised fresh questions about Israel’s claim that Hamas’s headquarters is buried underneath the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Israel has used the claim to justify dropping 2,000-pound bombs outside the hospital. The total number of Palestinians killed since the 7 October attack has surpassed 12,000.
Israeli troops have raided the Al-Shifa Hospital complex for two consecutive days. There are 7,000 people, including patients, medics, and civilians seeking shelter trapped inside the facility, Al Jazeera reported.
There is no water, electricity, and communications.
Bowen wrote on BBC.com: The evidence Israel has produced, so far, I do not believe to be convincing in terms of the kind of rhetoric Israelis were using about the set-up at the hospital, which suggested this was a nerve centre for the Hamas operation.
He noted, “The discovery of and evidence for a major Hamas headquarters underneath the hospital is of course still possible.”
Dr. Marwan Abu Sada, the head of surgery at Al Shifa Hospital, spoke to the Associated Press by phone from the facility on Saturday and held the receiver in the air so the reporter could hear the “hammering of gunfire and artillery shelling” from outside.
These hospitals in Gaza do not only treat the sick and injured, but are also used by thousands of Gazans as refugees from the fighting because hospitals are traditionally off-limits during wartime.
Israel claims that the bombings and attacks on these hospitals and ambulance convoys are regrettable but needed because Hamas uses these facilities as staging grounds for attacks. Israel claims that Hamas’s main headquarters is located beneath the hospital—which Hamas and the health ministry deny.
John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council spokesman, told reporters Thursday: “We have our own intelligence that convinces us that Hamas was using Al-Shifa as a command and control node — and, most likely, as well, as a storage facility.”