Video: Hamas operates a terrorist headquarters under Shifa Hospital in Gaza/Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Office
Despite the shadow of the events of the first intifada that broke out three years earlier, many guests gathered on a winter day at the end of December 1990 to mark the inauguration of a new wing at Shifa Hospital in Gaza. But plans are separate and reality is separate. This day was not much different from other days in the Gaza Strip at the time; Three combat engineer soldiers on patrol on Nasser Street in Gaza were stabbed by a resident of the Shati camp. Their friends shot the assailant and he was evacuated to Shifa Hospital. While the perpetrator was being brought into the hospital, Major General Shmuel Goren, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Brigadier General Aryeh Ramot, head of the Civil Administration in Gaza, and other guests were smuggled out. A short time later, the assailant was pronounced dead, his body was snatched from the hospital and riots broke out.
This event symbolizes the gap in those days between Israel's large investment in upgrading Shifa Hospital in Gaza and the violent Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. In the ongoing conflict, Shifa Hospital, to which most of the wounded Palestinians were evacuated, became one of the symbols of that struggle. The hospital is now at the center of the Israeli effort to eradicate Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, in light of intelligence reports that the terrorist organization's leadership is hiding under the hospital.
A structure that is a symbol of struggle. Tents in Shifa Hospital parking lot in the Gaza Strip/Reuters
Thousands of documents in files in the State Archives detail the project to upgrade the hospital more than thirty years ago. No one imagined that the same bureaucratic-engineering occupation for the construction of a medical building would one day become a shelter for the leadership of a murderous terrorist organization. The building that Israel built at the time in the hospital compound is defined in documents as "Building 8." In the initial planning stages, four floors were planned to be built, and later it was decided to add two additional floors. The building had operating rooms, hospitalization rooms and an X-ray institute. But attention today is focused on the basement floor from which the Hamas leadership operates. In building number eight, the basement was intended to serve the X-ray institute, as well as plumbing rooms and electric boilers. One of the documents asks "to conduct an examination of the connections between the main buildings by underground passages." By the way, in addition to the boilers in the basement, a solar system was installed on the roof to heat the water in the building's pipes. The decision to add two floors was made when work was already underway, which necessitated the dismantling of various systems already installed on the roof, including the solar system. Of course, the change in plans will also make the project more expensive.
The project was chosen to be managed by the Public Works Department, which over the years became Netivei Israel and employed many contractors and subcontractors, as well as engineers and supervisors.
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Planning for the project began in the mid-1987s and did not stop even when the first intifada broke out in December 1989. However, the new security situation has affected the progress of the works and documents indicating this can be seen; For example, the company that installed the air conditioning systems submitted a table calculating compensation for security disturbances in the execution of the work. The company that installed the elevators wrote that it had to stop the work due to the security situation.
A document sent by the company to the Ministry of Construction and Housing in mid-28 states that for two months its employees reached Erez Crossing and were not allowed to cross into Gaza. "Yesterday, 6.89.<>, we finally managed to penetrate the construction site, and we intended to continue regular work (as much as possible), but we found that the warehouse we had at your disposal had been broken into and much of the equipment was missing." They note in the letter that they will not be able to meet the agreed timetable both because "there is a reluctance of the components and carriers to enter this city" and also because they have to order new equipment from abroad.
They were not allowed to enter Gaza and renovate the hospital. Erez Crossing/Walla System! NEWS, Ilan Asayag, Haaretz
Retired Colonel David Hacham remembers that period well and even attended that festive ceremony that was interrupted in the middle, marking the inauguration of the new building at Shifa. He has visited the hospital dozens of times and is now convinced that "the hospital has become Hamas headquarters and the day of this institution will come."
Eight years of his life he served as a wise man in Gaza, including six years as staff officer for Arab affairs in the Gaza Strip. In practice, its role was to be the eyes, ears and mouth of the Israeli government in the Gaza Strip. He knew every double ground in the Gaza Strip and met on an almost daily basis public representatives from all parts of society, from radical leftists to leaders of fundamentalist Islam. As part of his duties, he also visited Shifa Hospital many times and got to know the senior officials of the institution and the directors of the place.
Hacham vividly remembers visiting the site a few months before the outbreak of the first intifada, in honor of the inauguration of a new department. After a festive ceremony, a meeting was held with the medical staff and senior employees at the site. One of the doctors raised his hand and asked to speak, it was a psychiatrist named Dr. Iyad Serge. To this day, Hacham remembers his harsh remarks, accompanied by the speaker's harsh tone against Israel. Dr. Serge strongly attacked Israel, the Israeli regime and expressed his opposition to the Israeli occupation. He remembers that the harsh speech surprised everyone present including him, but it was another warning light for those he already recognized. "The terrain was already bubbling and I felt like we were walking on a thin crust," he said
He served in Gaza for eight years. Retired Col. David Hacham, between David Levy and Yasser Arafat/Courtesy of the subjects
In the health system in Gaza in general and in Shifa in particular, Israel invested resources and attention, he said, because it saw health as a central area of focus. Doctors would go to Israeli hospitals for training and Israeli doctors would come to teach at Shifa. "This continued during the Intifada. We did not see ourselves acting against the Palestinian population, but against the terrorist organizations. We had an obligation to help the population," he explained.
He has no doubt that the basement floor built by Israel has grown and branched out by Hamas over the past 15 years and has become the center of the terrorist organization's activity, knowing that Israel will not harm the hospital. Now he feels that this assumption is about to end.
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