The Israeli military claims it has uncovered a tunnel shaft underneath the beleaguered al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza.
In an announcement on Sunday, the military stated it discovered a 55-metre-long (180 ft), 10-metre-deep (32 ft) tunnel underneath Gaza’s largest medical facility, which has been underneath siege by Israeli troops for a number of days.
The military revealed a video on its official Telegram channel exhibiting a soldier decreasing himself into the tunnel. The footage was shot with two separate cameras on November 17, it stated.
The movies present a staircase resulting in an arched concrete passage that ends in what seems to be a door. The military says it’s the entrance of the tunnel shaft with “a blast-proof door and a firing gap”.
Based on the assertion, the tunnel was discovered “within the space of the hospital beneath a shed alongside a car containing quite a few weapons together with RPGs, explosives, and Kalashnikov rifles”.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari instructed reporters the doorway was uncovered when a army bulldozer knocked down the skin wall of the hospital advanced and located a fortified shaft with a spiral staircase descending 10 metres.
“It’s an enormous one which has metallic [spiral] stairs, then it goes alongside for 55 metres… and reaches a blast door,” stated Hagari, indicating that troops had not but tried to open the door for worry it might be booby-trapped.
Past the door, intelligence urged both the tunnel would break up or there can be “a giant room for command and management”, he added, saying troops would proceed looking the world as there could possibly be entry shafts from close by homes.
Israel has made al-Shifa Hospital a focus of its operations because the military entered it on Wednesday, claiming it harbours a Hamas command centre – a declare Hamas in addition to employees working on the hospital have denied.
“It’s in all probability one out of dozens, even perhaps a whole lot, of tunnels. Everyone knows there are tunnels in Gaza,” Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara stated.
“The issue shouldn’t be discovering a tunnel. The issue is the Israeli excuse – and their supporters in London and Washington too – that there was ‘a metropolis underneath a metropolis’.”
Israeli occupation forces breached the surgical division of Al Shifa Hospital right now, staying for over 5 hours.
Medical employees and sufferers endured an unwarranted investigation, leading to humiliation. One affected person was arrested. Urgently calling on the @UN United Nations and…— Ahmed El Mokhallalati (@AMokhallalati) November 19, 2023
The Israeli military on Sunday additionally stated {that a} captive soldier was executed and two overseas captives held at al-Shifa Hospital. The military is trying to find some 240 folks Hamas kidnapped to Gaza after the October 7 cross-border assault.
One of many hostages was a 19-year-old Israeli military conscript, Noa Marciano, whose physique was recovered close to al-Shifa final week. Hamas stated she died in an Israeli air strike and issued a video that appeared to indicate her corpse, unmarked apart from a head wound.
The Israeli army stated a forensic examination discovered she had sustained non-life-threatening accidents from such a strike.
“Based on intelligence data – strong intelligence data – Noa was taken by Hamas terrorists contained in the partitions of Shifa hospital. There, she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist,” Hagari stated with out elaborating.
In his televised briefing, Hagari stated Hamas attackers had additionally introduced a Nepalese and a Thai captive, amongst overseas employees seized within the October 7 raid, to al-Shifa. He didn’t title the 2 hostages.
Hamas didn’t instantly touch upon Hagari’s statements. It beforehand stated it took some hostages to hospitals for remedy.
Not less than 13,000 Palestinians, 5,500 of them youngsters, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its air and floor assault, the Gaza well being ministry stated.
The siege of al-Shifa Hospital, the point of interest of the six-week “genocide”, has sparked worldwide outcry, with the World Well being Group describing it as a “dying zone” when its workforce visited the power on Saturday.
Greater than 7,000 folks, together with sufferers in vital situation and new child infants combating for his or her lives, had been sheltered inside al-Shifa earlier than those that had been in a position to transfer had been compelled out this weekend.
Thirty-one untimely infants had been evacuated on Sunday and brought to the European and Nasser hospitals within the south of the Gaza Strip.
Based on studies from medical employees inside al-Shifa, some sufferers stay on the hospital and had been interrogated earlier on Sunday.
