Status: 17.11.2023, 10:05 a.m.
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Israeli soldiers near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City (symbolic image). © Israel Defense Forces/dpa/IDF
Under Al-Shifa Hospital, Hamas is said to be planning its attacks on Israel. The evidence is piling up, but the evidence is lacking.
JERUSALEM – The search for evidence of Hamas' extensive infrastructure in the Gaza Strip continues: The Israeli raid on Shifa Hospital had to be extended to the second day on Thursday. Israeli as well as U.S. authorities assume that there must be an entire command complex under the clinic. It is possible that some of the hostages were also held captive in underground tunnel systems.
Israel News: Armed Forces Search for Hamas Traces at Al-Shifa Hospital
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that during a search of a house near the hospital, the body of an abducted Israeli woman and weapons were found. On Wednesday, the IDF released photos and news videos of small weapons caches allegedly belonging to Hamas.
On Thursday, the military backed up its claim in the Israel war with a photo and video of a rough cavity it described as an "operational tunnel shaft." The Washington Post confirmed the location of the shaft inside Al-Shifa Hospital, but could not verify where the opening led or what its purpose was.
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Israel, however, has yet to provide the final findings to substantiate that the Al-Shifa clinic is located above a Hamas headquarters and was central to the militant group's operations in the northern Gaza Strip.
Operation in the Gaza Strip: Al-Shifa Clinic Surrounded by Armed Forces
When cell phone connections in the Gaza Strip broke down, aid organizations claimed to have lost contact with their teams at the hospital, and repeated calls from The Post to doctors and staff landed directly on voicemail. The post eventually managed to reach Ashraf al-Qudra, the spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health, who works at Al-Shifa.
"The soldiers and military machines are around the hospital, but every now and then they go in and out of the complex for their operations," he said. He reported renewed searches in several departments of the hospital.
Qudra said the hospital, which is surrounded by fighting, was without food and water for the sixth day on Thursday. "Therefore, we ask that fuel, medicine, food and water be admitted to the hospital immediately."
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According to the IDF, special forces soldiers searched the hospital compound floor by floor. "The operation is shaped by our understanding that there is a well-hidden terrorist infrastructure in the complex," it said in a statement.
Photos and videos: Netanyahu presents first hints of Hamas
Israel is under intense pressure to back up its long-standing claims. An official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that all further evidence would be released as soon as possible and that journalists would be given the opportunity to tour the facilities. Teams from Fox News and the BBC were escorted on short trips to the hospital.
Israel had hoped to find clear evidence of significant militant activity in al-Shifa in the raid, a European diplomat told The Post. However, the lack of clear evidence has already prompted Western allies, including the United States, to increase pressure on Israel to accept a pause in the fighting, according to the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
The invasion of al-Shifa early Wednesday had been expected for days. The hospital, the main health center of the Gaza Strip and a refuge for displaced people from the Gaza Strip, has become a symbol of the humanitarian crisis in the overcrowded enclave. Israel's attack, which officials say is aimed at wiping out Hamas once and for all, was in response to the militant group's surprise attacks on nearby Israeli cities on October 7. Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages.
Attacks on Al-Shifa: Is Israel violating international law in its fight against Hamas?
Israel describes the invasion of Gaza as a "precise and targeted" mission to drive Hamas out of one of its main command centers. The Israel Defense Forces carried out the operation in accordance with international law, as the military had warned hospital staff for days about evacuating the patients, and Hamas' activities had revoked the hospital's protected status under the Geneva Conventions.
Humanitarian groups, however, condemned the invasion and said Israel's actions underscored the need for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Israel and the United States have rejected these demands.
Aid agencies warned that the raid had accelerated the collapse of medical care within the enclave. The ministry of health in the Gaza Strip announced last week that more than 7,11 people, including 000,4 children, had died in the enclave since October 000. On November 10, the census was discontinued, citing a lack of means of communication. More than 27,000 injured people have overwhelmed a health system that operates without medical care and often even without electricity.
Mohamed Zaqout, the head of Gaza's hospital network, said the loss of communications prevented his team from determining the whereabouts and condition of about 650 patients in al-Shifa. Among them are children and dialysis patients in serious condition, he said.
"We have been trying to communicate and coordinate with the Red Cross since the morning to transfer patients to hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip, but so far there has been no result," Zaqout said in a telephone interview. "We are trying to bring some of them to Egypt, but there is no coordination here yet, and that puts their lives in danger."
Humanitarian situation in the Gaza war: UN denounces situation
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned on Thursday that the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip risks hunger and disease. Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva that a humanitarian pause in the fighting – as called for in a recent UN Security Council resolution – would not be enough. The conditions call for a ceasefire to ensure basic services and "create the political space for a way out of this horror," he said.
"There has been a breakdown of basic respect for humane values," Turk said. "The killing of so many civilians cannot be dismissed as collateral damage. The only winner of such a war is probably extremism and further extremism."
The impact of the lack of electricity and fuel for generators on the enclave's sewage system and hospitals, Turk said, makes "massive outbreaks of infectious diseases and starvation seem inevitable." The Israeli operation at Al-Shifa Hospital and the claim to have found military material at the facility shows the need for UN access and an independent investigation.
Israeli strategists have hoped that such a deep attack in the heart of Gaza City would put pressure on Hamas to reach an agreement on the release of hostages. Israeli officials declined to comment publicly on reports that the militant group had agreed to release some prisoners in exchange for a three- to five-day humanitarian pause and the release of an unspecified number of Hamas prisoners in Israeli custody.
Trail to the hostages: Relatives now demand clarity from Israel
The families of some of the Israelis taken hostage by Hamas called on the government to release any evidence that the detainees may have been held or treated in hospital. The IDF said the investigation was continuing.
The body of the hostage, which was discovered near Al-Shifa on Thursday, was the body of Yehudit Weiss, according to the IDF. The 65-year-old was a kindergarten teacher from Kibbutz Beeri, one of the cities devastated by Hamas. Her husband, Shmulik Weiss, was killed in the rampage, Israeli media reported.
Support for the war remains strong among the Israeli public, but the political divide appeared to deepen on Thursday with calls for Netanyahu's resignation. Opposition leader Yair Lapid demanded for the first time that Netanyahu's Likud party replace him as party leader, which would be tantamount to his removal as prime minister without the need for new elections. The opposition parties, Lapid said, would be willing to work in a government with the Likud under different leadership.
"He has to go now because, in terms of security and society, we can't afford a prime minister who has lost the public's trust," Lapid told an Israeli news channel.
Impact of Middle East war: Calls for Netanyahu's resignation grow louder
The anger against Netanyahu is great. Even some of his supporters criticize his long-standing policy of supporting Hamas in order to create a split between the Palestinian factions, blaming him for the failure to prevent the Hamas attack on October 7.
Polls conducted in the weeks following the attack showed that two-thirds of Israelis wanted Netanyahu replaced. Support for Benny Gantz, Netanyahu's main rival, has risen sharply. Gantz formed an emergency war cabinet together with the prime minister last month.
Hajar Harb and Paul Schemm in London and Jonathan Baran in San Francisco contributed to this report.
About the authors
Miriam Berger covers foreign news for The Washington Post from Washington, D.C. Prior to joining Swiss Post in 2019, she lived in Jerusalem and Cairo and reported freelance-based from the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and Central Asia.
Steve Hendrix has been head of the Washington Post's Jerusalem bureau since 2019. He joined the post office in 2000 and has written for pretty much every section of the newspaper: Foreign, National, Metro, Style, Travel, the Magazine. He has reported from the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, America, and most corners of the United States.
Sarah Dadouch is the Washington Post's Middle East correspondent in Beirut. Previously, she worked as a Reuters correspondent in Beirut, Riyadh and Istanbul.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article has been automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English by the "Washingtonpost.com" on November 17, 2023 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to the readers of IPPEN. MEDIA portals.