CNN
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The US doubled down on its evaluation that Hamas and different Gaza militants used the enclave’s largest hospital complex as a command hub in addition to to carry hostages and retailer weapons, with a senior intelligence official pointing to newly declassified intelligence that reinforces the conclusion of Israeli and US intelligence.
“The US Intelligence Group is assured in its judgment on this matter and has independently corroborated data on Hamas and [Palestinian Islamic Jiahd]’s use of the hospital complicated for a wide range of functions associated to its marketing campaign in opposition to Israel,” the official mentioned Tuesday.
However the US intelligence group didn’t launch any new proof to assist its evaluation after questions had been raised about to what extent the Al-Shifa Hospital was certainly the “beating coronary heart” of Hamas operations, as Israel had claimed.
In late December, the Washington Put up published an extensive investigation that forged doubt on a few of Israel’s claims.
Israel had come beneath widespread criticism for its November siege and assault on the struggling hospital, the place medical doctors had described the scenario as “catastrophic.”
The brand new intelligence echoed earlier allegations by the Biden administration and Israel within the days and weeks main as much as Israel’s November raid on Al-Shifa Hospital that intelligence indicated Hamas had a command and management node within the tunnels beneath the hospital complicated.
A spokesman for the Nationwide Safety Council, John Kirby, had additionally mentioned the hospital was getting used to retailer weapons and maintain hostages.
US intelligence continues to consider that, in keeping with the senior official, who added the positioning held “not less than a couple of hostages.”
“We now have data—obtained after the November 15 [Israel Defense Forces] operation—that Hamas members situated on the hospital had largely evacuated days earlier because the IDF approached the Al-Shifa complicated and that Hamas destroyed paperwork and electronics on the complicated prematurely of the IDF’s operation,” the official mentioned.
After Israel took management of the realm, the army posted a sequence of movies of spokesmen exhibiting weapons that had been allegedly discovered contained in the hospital itself in addition to a tunnel system beneath the hospital.
In November, Hamas acknowledged utilizing the hospital to usher in hostages as they “meticulously monitored” their well being earlier than detaining them in numerous places, after Israel launched video from the hospital’s safety cameras exhibiting hostages being introduced inside. However Hamas denied utilizing the hospital as a command hub.
CNN traveled with the IDF to the Shifa hospital complicated to see the uncovered tunnel shaft in November. The IDF then launched video exhibiting a tunnel extending from the shaft and persevering with beneath the hospital complicated.
In a video launched by the IDF on November 22, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari went into the tunnels and confirmed a tiled room in addition to a toilet that Hagari mentioned had been beneath the hospital, related to its energy system.
However it fell far wanting proving that Hamas used the hospital as a major command and management node for its operations, an assertion each Israel and the US had repeatedly made earlier than the IDF reached the hospital. Israel went so far as to publish a 3D graphic illustration of a Hamas command hub extending underground straight from the hospital buildings. Neither Israel nor the US have printed proof that absolutely matches up with the claims.