Israeli army displays tunnel beneath Al Shifa it says served as Hamas hideout.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army revealed a reinforced tunnel next to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. It had a kitchen, restroom, and air-conditioned conference room, which it said was used as a command center by Hamas forces.

About two meters (6 1/2 feet) high, the underground shaft was reached via an external shaft on the grounds of the hospital complex. The army claimed that hundreds of Palestinian residents had previously lived inside as a human shield throughout the conflict.

According to Colonel Elad Tsuri, the commander of an Israeli armoured battalion that discovered the tunnel, “that’s how they survive because they use the hospital as a human shield that protects them.” And they are welcome to remain here for a while. A room with air conditioning is present.”

Israel has long maintained that Hamas is hiding its soldiers among civilians by utilizing the Shifa hospital complex as a command and control center as part of a more extensive operation.

The hospital location has been the focus of charges of war crimes on both sides; the Palestinians accuse Israel of bombing hospitals, while Israel claims the sites are being used to house armed militants. Both Hamas and hospital authorities have refuted the accusation.

Israeli military vehicles took journalists past a scene of destroyed or abandoned buildings from Israel’s almost seven-week invasion of the Palestinian territory on their way to the hospital complex in the northern Gaza Strip.

The tunnel was a well-constructed, concrete- and stone-walled tunnel adorned with arches. Army escorts led the way in the dark with flashlights, revealing a little kitchen, a bathroom with a basin and toilet behind a closed door, and a room big enough for meetings with two metal beds.

“We presume that they have another escape plan. Though it’s not accessible yet, Tsuri stated, “We are confident there are routes from here that lead to the city. He added that the army was aware that the tunnel went to another entrance in a daycare in Gaza.

The international condemnation of Israel’s Gaza assault, which included strikes on Shifa, the main hospital in the territory, has been leveled. Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, when Israel claims 1,200 people were murdered and 240 were taken captive, medical professionals estimate that Israel has killed almost 13,000 people in the Gaza Strip.

The army displayed many weapons, grenades, and other explosives outside on the ground. According to military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, these items had been gathered recently from the hospital, a neighboring house, and other vehicles.

He said that the soldiers had found the body of one captive, 19-year-old Noa Marciano, outside a nearby medical facility. She was killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to a video that Hamas had earlier broadcast. It was not able to confirm the assertion.

The White House in Washington stated that Israel’s allegations that Hamas was concealing command posts in Gaza’s hospitals, particularly Shifa, were validated by its independent intelligence.

At the time, Hamas said: “The White House and the Pentagon’s adoption of the false (Israeli) narrative, claiming that the resistance is using Al Shifa medical complex for military purposes, was a green light for the occupation (Israel) to commit more massacres against civilians.”

However, Hagari declared, “The world now should say what happened in Shifa, what happened in the hospitals, is a war crime,” alluding to Hamas’ use of a hospital’s subterranean hideaway.