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U.S. spy businesses imagine that Hamas and one other Palestinian group preventing Israel used Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza to command forces and maintain some hostages, in keeping with new American intelligence declassified on Tuesday.
The hospital was the main target of a big Israel Protection Forces effort in November to take management of the ability, an operation that got here below intense worldwide scrutiny and criticism.
Israeli officers stated Hamas had constructed an enormous complicated below the hospital, making it a reputable navy goal. However critics stated the navy operation successfully lower off and shut down an important a part of Gaza’s medical community with little proof that Hamas was utilizing the hospital as a command submit.
A senior U.S. intelligence official stated on Tuesday that the American authorities continued to imagine that Hamas used the hospital complicated and websites beneath it to train command and management actions, retailer weapons and maintain “a minimum of just a few hostages.”
American intelligence businesses obtained data that Hamas fighters had evacuated the complicated days earlier than the multiday operation, destroying paperwork and electronics as they left, the senior intelligence official stated.
After the operation, the Israeli navy took reporters to a shaft on the complicated resulting in a tunnel community. Later, the navy confirmed the tunnels beneath the hospital.
White Home officers on the time backed the Israeli evaluation. “We’ve data that confirms that Hamas is utilizing that individual hospital for a command and management node,” John F. Kirby, a Nationwide Safety Council spokesman, stated on Nov. 14.
Within the weeks for the reason that operation, information organizations have continued to boost questions on Hamas’s presence on the hospital. And well being and humanitarian organizations have criticized the Israeli operation. A humanitarian group lead by the World Well being Group, which visited Al-Shifa instantly after Israeli forces stormed the hospital, known as it a “demise zone.”
However the American intelligence evaluation has remained agency that the hospital was utilized by Hamas. The brand new intelligence represents probably the most present American evaluation, officers stated.
The complicated was utilized by each Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to command forces preventing towards Israel, in keeping with the intelligence.
Whereas the spy businesses supplied no visible proof, a U.S. official stated they have been assured of their evaluation as a result of it was based mostly on data collected by Israel and America’s personal intelligence, gathered independently.
Some had hoped that the operation to take the hospital may consequence within the rescue of a few of the hostages taken by Palestinian fighters throughout their Oct. 7 assault on Israel. No hostages have been rescued, however Israeli officers discovered the our bodies of two hostages at or close to the complicated, officers have stated.
The brand new American intelligence evaluation says the Israeli evaluation was a minimum of partially appropriate that some hostages have been held at or below the complicated. However these hostages seem to have been moved as Hamas evacuated.
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