JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli troops found weapons and “terror infrastructure” during an on-going raid at one specific location within Al Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip, a senior military official said on Wednesday.
The official told reporters that there had been no fighting inside the hospital complex after the soldiers arrived during the night, and no friction with medical staff or patients, who he said were in a different section of the site.
“IDF soldiers have already found weapons and other terror infrastructure. In the last hour, we saw concrete evidence that Hamas terrorists used the Shifa hospital as a terror headquarter,” the official said, declining to be named.
He did not specify what part of the hospital troops were searching and did not spell out what had been found, but said the evidence would be presented later.
“This is an extremely precise and targeted operation. Our forces are present in one specific area of the very large Shifa hospital complex,” he added, without saying how long the raid would last.
“Our soldiers are making a slow and deliberate progress based on our intelligence,” he said.
The Israelis have said for years that Hamas militants have used Al Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, as a cover for their operations. Hamas itself and hospital staff have denied this.
The military official said four militants had died in a gunfight outside Al Shifa, as Israeli soldiers sought to enter the complex. He added that soldiers had interrogated individuals found in the area they were searching.
“I have an understanding that one of them is Hamas,” he said.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by James Mackenzie)
