2023-11-22 21:15:00
In a surprising revelation, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak admitted during a CNN interview that the bunkers beneath the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, often touted by the Israeli military as justification for bombing and invading the establishment, were actually built by Israel.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak confirmed to CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour that the bunkers under Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital were “originally built by Israeli engineers” when the Jewish state occupied the strip from Gaza.
During his interview, Amanpour asked Barak about evidence provided by the Israeli government regarding the use of the tunnels under al-Shifa as major Hamas command centers. the former prime minister responded: “perhaps not major… It has been known for many years that… the bunkers, originally built by Israeli engineers under Shifa, were used as a Hamas command post “.
“Decades ago we ran the place, so we held them for decades, maybe five or four decades ago, that we helped them build these bunkers to allow more space for the operation of the hospital in the very limited size of this complex,” explained Ehud Barak.
Faced with this revelation, Amanpour asked whether Barak was wrong in claiming that these bunkers were built by Israeli engineers. Barak responded in the negative, explaining that when Israel controlled the region, they helped build these bunkers to increase the hospital’s operational capacity in a very limited space.
Israeli officials recently broadcast claims, echoed by Western media and government officials, that the tunnels served as Hamas command centers, justifying the attacks on the hospital.
A few weeks ago, while al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip, was still partially functioning, the Israeli government released an animated video showing Hamas’ vast network of tunnels beneath the hospital. These claims were repeated by Western media, alongside reports of the horrific conditions suffered by Palestinians under Israeli bombardment.
The Israeli government continued to spread similar messages by bombing the hospital and depriving it of fuel and electricity, culminating in a raid by Israeli troops on the hospital after a fuel shortage last week.
According to testimonies from hospital workers and the Palestinian Health Ministry, the raid had devastating consequences, with staff struggling to keep patients, including newborns, alive while Israeli forces arrested civilians. and hospital staff, exhumed graves in the hospital garden and forced doctors and patients to evacuate at gunpoint.
During the raid, Israeli forces released videos and photos purporting to show that the tunnels and hospital were sheltering militants. However, the evidence presented was not convincing, and even media outlets traditionally sympathetic to Israeli officials expressed skepticism. As critics of the Israeli occupation have pointed out, the burden of proof regarding the tunnels would have to be high to justify a raid on the hospital, and the evidence so far, ranging from interviews with hospital staff hospital to videos released by Israeli forces themselves, have not conclusively demonstrated that the Israeli officials’ claims were correct.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Monday that its staff had only ever seen civilians in the medical establishment.
The Israeli occupation army then forced patients and medical teams to leave the hospital despite the difficult conditions. Among those evacuated were 28 premature babies who were transferred from Al-Shifa Hospital in Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.
Although the fact that the tunnels were built by Israel does not necessarily mean that Hamas is telling the truth in denying using them for military operations, it does raise questions about the seemingly indiscriminate attack by Israeli forces on the hospital and those inside the complex, despite having detailed knowledge of the tunnels.
Meanwhile, Israel has made similar claims regarding tunnels under the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza. On Monday, a bomb killed at least 12 Palestinians at the Indonesian Hospital as Israeli tanks surrounded the complex, which currently houses hundreds of patients and medical staff.
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