War between Israel and Hamas: Israeli military raids on the Gaza hospital, a key objective in its invasion

American intelligence service supports the Israeli claim of Hamas operating inside and among hospitals, a National Security Council spokesman said Tuesday.

Israeli forces moved in shortly afterwards and captured videos that the army released on Monday and Tuesday as part of an attack campaign to convince skeptics that Hamas has turned hospitals into safe houses and command centers and built tunnels underneath them.

“This is not the last hospital like this in Gaza, and the world should know that,” said Admiral Daniel Hagari, chief spokesman for the Israeli army. “It’s a crime.”

In the first of the videos, a six-minute presentation released Monday, Admiral Hagari walks viewers through what he says was found in the hospital basement. The Israeli army followed suit on Tuesday a second video, just over two minutes long, posted on X, formerly Twitter. That video claims troops storm the building and appear to find explosives, weapons and the room where Admiral Hagari said hostages were being held.

Both videos contained a series of claims that could not be independently verified. The first includes well-rendered evidence – guns, explosives and other weaponry, all arranged as if police were showing off the loot from a drug raid – the provenance of which could also not be confirmed.

The second, however, shows troops in action appearing to find the weapons that would be shown in the longer video.

Osama Hamadan, a spokesman for Hamas, called Admiral Hagari’s presentation a “lie and charade” at a press conference from Beirut on Tuesday. There was no immediate comment from Gazan officials or Hamas on the second video.

Monday’s video included images of a piece of paper taped to the wall in the hospital’s basement. Admiral Hagari said the paper – a grid with Arabic words and numbers within each square – could be a scheme for guarding hostages “where every terrorist writes his name.”

There was a mark on the paper that appeared to be an illegible signature, but did not appear to contain any other names of people; the Arabic words were the days of the week and the numbers under the dates. Gaza’s Ministry of Health said in a statement that the newspaper, including days and dates, was nothing more than “a schedule for regular shifts, a standard administrative practice in hospitals.”

However, the ministry failed to elaborate on one important detail: the calendar starts on October 7, the day of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel, and an Arabic title at the top uses the militants’ name for the attack: “ Al Aqsa Flood Battle, 7/10/2023.”

Dr. Mustafa Al Kahlout, the hospital’s director, said on Tuesday that families fleeing the Israeli bombardment have sought shelter in Al-Rantisi and other hospitals in Gaza. He called on the Red Cross and other international organizations to “inspect all parts of the hospitals.”

The video released by the Israeli military on Monday begins with Admiral Hagari standing a few hundred meters from Al-Rantisi. In English, he points out that what he says is the house of a senior Hamas leader, a school next door and a pile of rubble under which is the entrance to a tunnel supposedly leading to the hospital.

The video then cuts to Admiral Hagari in what he believes to be the basement of the hospital. He enters a room with children’s drawings on blue and pink walls. Neatly on the floor is a series of weapons that he says were found in the hospital.

Admiral Hagari then shows what he believes to be an area connected to the basement of the hospital, where the hostages taken during the October 7 attack were reportedly held.

There is a windowless room with sofas and curtains covering the bare walls, where he says hostage videos could be made. There is a chair with a rope on the floor next to it, a ‘makeshift toilet’, a baby bottle and a pack of diapers. There is also a motorcycle that he said was used to take hostages back to Gaza.

“You don’t build a makeshift toilet in the basement unless you want to build an infrastructure to hold hostages,” said Admiral Hagari.

On what happened to the hostages and Hamas fighters allegedly in the hospital, he says: “They may have left with the patients, they may have run away through tunnels and we have signs that they had hostages with them. It’s still being investigated, but there are plenty of signs pointing to it.”

For its part, the Gaza Health Ministry said the basement rooms shown were used as shelters “for those fleeing airstrikes. The bathroom shown is a necessity.”

The baby bottle and diapers were nothing out of the ordinary at a children’s hospital, the hospital said. As for the weapons, it added: “We don’t know where they got them.”