IDF releases videos showing Hamas tunnels and weapons under two Gaza hospitals

Wave of international condemnation over Al-Shifa hospital raid; consensus of Israeli legal experts finds 'a very strong suspicion of a deliberate disproportionate attack'.

The Israeli army has started withdrawing from the AL-Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest, after storming the complex on Wednesday. Soldiers were conducting searches and interrogations inside, and Israeli officers said they had found rifles, ammunition, body armour and other military equipment in a radiology building.

In a video filmed at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, showed about 10 guns, ammunition, protective vests and Hamas military uniforms, some of which he said were hidden behind MRI machines, others in nearby storage units and some behind what he described as a “blast-proof door.”

The assertions made in the video could not be independently verified, the New York Times reported.

Earlier in the week, the IDF released a pair of videos from inside the Al-Rantizi children’s hospital that showed weapons and explosives purportedly found in the medical centre, and a room where the military said hostages were kept.

While the Health Ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, on Tuesday disputed nearly every assertion made in the initial Israeli video, it acknowledged that the footage was taken from inside Al-Rantisi Specialized Hospital for Children in northern Gaza. The remaining patients and staff are believed to have left the hospital over the weekend after it was surrounded by Israeli forces.

US intelligence supports the Israeli allegation of Hamas operating within and beneath hospitals, a National Security Council spokesman said on Tuesday.

The White House backed up Israeli claims that Palestinian militant groups have been using Al-Shifa and other hospitals for military purposes, but the White House has yet to provide evidence of what it said was independent intelligence.

Meanwhile, initiatives are being launched, with Israel’s permission, to establish field hospitals and hospital ships as alternatives to Al-Shifa and the other Gaza hospitals that have been turned into shelters for terrorists.

In fact, Israel has requested this from some several European countries, so that these hospitals can take in the sick and wounded patients who’d be evacuated from Al-Shifa, including the transfer of premature babies in incubators and intubated patients. (Reuters reported Saturday night that Hagari said the military would help evacuate babies trapped in Al-Shifa on Sunday).

Last week, it was announced that the UAE was already establishing a 150-bed field hospital in Gaza; Italy will send a “floating hospital” off the coast of Gaza and will also set up a field hospital in the region; Egypt is setting up several field hospitals; and France and Greece have also expressed readiness to send floating hospitals. German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that the ships are supposed to anchor in Egypt, from there they would collect the wounded, who’d be permitted to leave Gaza.

However, even if there will be alternative hospitals prepared to take in the wounded and sick, doubts remain about patient transportation. Would Hamas allow the transfer? What would Israel do with the tens of thousands of civilians at the site?

Turkish ship carrying supplies to build field hospitals arrives in Egyptian port el-Arish as Israeli military seeks to destroy Hamas command centres in hospitals

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Israel Says Troops Find Weapons During Taking of Gaza Hospital (NYT)

Israel shows videos of a Gaza hospital basement it says was used by Hamas (NYT)

Israel faces wave of international condemnation over hospital raid (Guardian)

Is Israel Abiding by International Law in Gaza? (Haaretz)
Hamas makes it hard for the IDF to comply with international laws of war when it operates out of hospitals and schools. Legal experts weigh in on the army's conduct in Gaza so far: 'There is a very strong suspicion of a deliberate disproportionate attack'

In subverting humanitarian laws, Hamas has changed the state of war as we know it (SMH)
GREG ROSE, PROFESSOR OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG: In Gaza today, we see international humanitarian law in turmoil. The law comes from the previous war, not the next one. The landscape of war and the ways in which conflicts are fought have shifted dramatically over the past 80 years

US accuses Hamas, Islamic Jihad of using Gaza hospitals as command centres (Al-Monitor)
The White House backed up Israeli claims that Palestinian militant groups have been using Al-Shifa and other hospitals for military purposes, but the White House has yet to provide evidence of what it said was independent intelligence

The Tragedy of Al-Shifa Hospital: Israel's Biggest Moral Challenge in the Gaza War (Haaretz)