(Eli Pacheco, Headline USA) Israel posted a video on Sunday that it said proves Hamas has dug a tunnel under the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital—but left-wing media continued to raise doubts of the video’s validity.
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Joint IDF and ISA announcement:Fortified Terror Tunnel Exposed Underneath the Shifa Hospital Complex
Based on IDF and ISA intelligence, IDF troops exposed a 55-meter-long terror tunnel 10 meters deep underneath the Shifa Hospital complex. pic.twitter.com/sXUSvf3CAf
— Sander (@BRHartsupplies) November 19, 2023
The footage released by the Israeli Defense Forces included shots of terrorists moving hostages through the hospital and into the apparent entrances to the tunnels.
Hamas has admitted to having hundreds of miles of access shafts, bunkers and tunnels, but it denies the secret structures are in civilian buildings, such as hospitals.
A U.S. official said Hamas has a command node under the hospital, according to intelligence.
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, though, claims the evidence isn’t conclusive.
Pro-Hamas MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell is still falsely insisting that Hamas is not using hospitals as human shields.
"The counter from Israel is that Hamas has tunneled under the hospitals. We have not seen that intelligence. That's based on IDF video, IDF claims." pic.twitter.com/SUjykiny61— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) November 14, 2023
“The counter from Israel is that Hamas has tunneled under the hospitals,” Mitchell said on air Sunday. “We have not seen that intelligence. That’s based on IDF video, IDF claims.”
The Washington Post likewise pushed back on the IDF’s claims, saying that despite the visual confirmation it had yet to provide “significant evidence” to corroborate the allegation.
The same @washingtonpost article that quotes Hamas-provided casualty numbers without labeling them as such says Israel has not provided "**significant** evidence" that Hamas used a hospital as a base of operations.https://t.co/RhtLZAdBqw pic.twitter.com/iW0ot2Cv9m
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) November 20, 2023
Israeli military officials said they discovered the tunnel, 33 feet deep and 180 feet long. It leads to a blast-proof door, according to Newsmax.
“This type of door is used by the Hamas terrorist organization to block Israeli forces from entering the command centers and the underground assets belonging to Hamas,” said a joint military statement by the IDF and the Israeli Security Authority.
The release includes a video depicting a narrow tunnel with an arched concrete roof.
Hamas militants have accessed the tunnel through a shaft in a shed in the Shifa compound. The compound houses munitions, too, according to the release.
The video comes during Israel’s search-and-destroy mission against Hamas, as the Israeli–Hamas war reached its seventh week.
The release also showed, according to Israel, closed-circuit TV footage with a timestamp on Oct. 7—the date Hamas militants staged an attack on Israel. That video was from Al-Shifa Hospital and documented terrorists transporting hostages through the tunnel on the day of the massacre.
According to Newsmax, the hostages appearing in the video were migrants from Nepal and Thailand.
These findings prove that the Hamas terrorist organization used the Shifa Hospital complex on the day of the October 7 Massacre as terrorist infrastructure. 2/2 pic.twitter.com/2UzlpKrNnv
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 19, 2023
“These findings prove that the Hamas terrorist organization used the Shifa Hospital complex on the day of the massacre as terrorist infrastructure,” said a tweet from an official IDF account.
The IDF continues its search for tunnels and underground facilities, MSN reported. About 300 people are still in the hospital, it said.
A U.S. official said Hamas has a command node under the hospital, according to intelligence.
“Without getting into this specific hospital or that specific claim, this is Hamas’s track record, both historically and in this conflict,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.