Hostages in Gaza: what we know about the images of Al-Shifa hospital released by Israel

2023-11-20 16:48:49

“Now the truth is clear. » Sunday evening, the Israeli army broadcast images presented as coming from the surveillance cameras of Al-Shifa hospital dating from October 7, the day of the bloody Hamas attack on Hebrew territory. She claims that we see hostages being brought into the hospital, which proves, according to her, that the Palestinian terrorist movement is using it for operational purposes. Hamas continues to deny this.

What do we see in the videos?

On these images, the authenticity of which we have not been able to verify, is written the date October 7, 2023, the day the Palestinian Islamist movement carried out its attack on Israel, the most violent in the country’s history since 1948. In addition to the 1,200 people killed, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities, some 240 people were taken hostage and brought to the Gaza Strip.

In one of the videos, a seriously injured man, his left hand bleeding across his stomach, is seen being brought at 10:57 a.m. into a corridor on a stretcher surrounded by several men. At least four are armed and at least three others wear blue medical scrubs.

In another video, at 10:54 a.m., a man wearing a light blue t-shirt, being cornered by two people, appears to be being taken by force into what appears to be a lobby. From his behavior, we can tell that he is struggling. We then see him again in another image, at 11 a.m., in a corridor of the building. From the front, we notice that his t-shirt is stained with blood.

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

Just before, the Israeli army showed videos in which several vehicles could be seen, white Toyota pickups and two Israeli military Jeeps, park in the hospital complex at 10:50 a.m. The first have already been seen in videos of the October 7 attack, identified as vehicles used by Hamas terrorists.

What does Israel say?

“The images show Hamas taking the hostages inside Al-Shifa hospital,” commented Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari during a press briefing. “One of the hostage takers and his prisoner enter through the main door of the hospital, and none of the local staff seem shocked at this sudden entry, because this place is in fact one of the Hamas HQ in Gaza,” insisted this Monday morning an Israeli officer contacted by Le Parisien.

The army says it has identified the two men seen in the videos, one is a Nepalese national and the other Thai. “We have not yet located these two hostages,” explained Daniel Hagari, specifying that “their consulates have been notified”. One of the white Toyota pick-ups was also found “hidden in a garage inside the hospital”, according to him.

The spokesperson took advantage of this press briefing to assert that the autopsy report of soldier Noa Marciano, a 19-year-old hostage discovered dead near Al-Shifa, according to the Israeli army, proved that she had was “assassinated on the spot by a Hamas terrorist”. “During the army shelling, her captor was killed and Noa injured, but not critically, that’s what the autopsy report says,” said Daniel Hagari. “It was in this context that we found the body of Noa Marciano, in an annex building to the hospital,” Olivier Rafowicz, spokesperson for the IDF, also told us.

“These findings prove that the Hamas terrorist organization used the Al-Shifa hospital complex as a terrorist infrastructure on the day of the massacre,” said the army and Shin Beth, the Israeli internal security service. in a press release.

Israeli forces besieged the hospital on Wednesday and are being pressured by the international community to provide evidence to justify their operation. “Now the truth is clear. Hamas is waging war from hospitals,” insisted Daniel Hagari on Sunday evening. “No losses have been reported in the IDF operation in the hospital,” Colonel Olivier Rafowicz, spokesperson for the IDF, also assured us this Monday morning. He also confirmed that the operation was carried out by “special forces, accompanied by medical teams and Arabic-speaking translators”. “We comb through room by room to find evidence which is then processed by the Shin Bet (Editor’s note, the Israeli intelligence service),” confirmed the IDF officer. The Israeli army also told us that operations of this type were still underway within the hospital establishment.

Shortly before the broadcast of these images, the Israeli army indicated that it had discovered a 55 m long tunnel used according to it “for terrorism” under the Al-Shifa hospital, while dozens of patients were still in the complex. , according to the World Health Organization (WHO). “A steep staircase leads to the entrance to the tunnel” equipped with several means of defense including an armored door, explained the army in a press releaseIt isexplaining that “this type of gate is used by Hamas terrorists to prevent Israeli forces from entering command centers.”

The tunnel was discovered in an area of ​​the hospital under a hangar containing weapons, including “grenade launchers, explosives and Kalashnikov rifles”, the IDF added, specifying that the soldiers continued to progress underground.

What does Hamas say?

Ezzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas political official cited in a movement statement, responded to Daniel Hagari on Sunday evening. “We have said for a long time that the resistance had brought several of the occupier’s prisoners to hospitals so that they could receive care and operations, in particular because some were injured in aerial bombardments” by the Israelis, he said. he says.

“We showed pictures of all this and the army spokesperson acts like he discovered something incredible,” he continued. From the start, Hamas has denied having any military activity in hospitals.