The Israeli government’s evidence fails to prove that al-Shifa hospital in Gaza was a command center for Hamas, according to a Thursday investigative report by The Washington Post that analyzed open-source graphics, satellite images, and publicly disclosed materials from the Israel Defense Forces.
Rooms connected to the tunnels found by the IDF “showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas,” the newspaper said.
The review also challenged statements from IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari, who pointed to five buildings allegedly used by Hamas at the hospital in an Oct. 27 press briefing, finding that none of the structures were connected to the tunnel network.
Even after the November raid of the hospital, Israeli and U.S. officials have stuck by their claims, with one telling the Post last week that they were “absolutely confident” with their intelligence and that “Hamas had been holding the hostages in the hospital compound until shortly before Israel went in.”
The Case of al-Shifa: Investigating the Assault on Gaza’s Largest Hospital
JERUSALEM — Weeks before Israel sent troops into al-Shifa Hospital, its spokesman began building a public case. The claims were remarkably specific — that five hospital buildings were directly involved in Hamas activities; that the buildings sat atop underground tunnels that were used by militants to direct rocket attacks and command fighters; and that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards. The assertions were backed by “concrete evidence,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said as he laid out the case in an Oct. 27 briefing.
After storming the complex on Nov. 15, the IDF released a series of photographs and videos that it said proved its central point. “Terrorists came here to command their operations,” Hagari said in a video published Nov. 22, guiding viewers through an underground tunnel, illuminating dark and empty rooms beneath al-Shifa.
But the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center, according to a Washington Post analysis of open-source visuals, satellite imagery and all of the publicly released IDF materials. That raises critical questions, legal and humanitarian experts say, about whether the civilian harm caused by Israel’s military operations against the hospital — encircling, besieging and ultimately raiding the facility and the tunnel beneath it — were proportionate to the assessed threat.
From the Post’s report:
✱ Rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.
✱ None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network.
✱ There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.
