Israel says video shows hostages at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital
JERUSALEM—Israel’s military on Sunday released security camera footage that, it said, showed hostages being brought into Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Oct. 7 after being kidnapped during Hamas’s attacks on southern Israel.
Al-Shifa hospital has become a focal point for Israel’s subsequent military operations in the Gaza Strip, with the army repeatedly saying Hamas uses it as a base, a claim the military has been under pressure to back up.
Earlier that day the army also said “troops exposed a 55-meter-long terror tunnel 10 meters deep underneath the Shifa hospital complex,” which ran under the hospital and ended at a blast door.
The militants and medical staff have denied that a command center is under the hospital.
The first video clip, which appears to be time-stamped 10:53 a.m. on Oct. 7, shows a man in shorts and a pale blue shirt being dragged through what looks like an entrance hall by five men, at least three of whom are armed.
In the second, seemingly time-stamped 10:55 a.m., an injured man in underwear is wheeled in on a gurney by seven men, at least four of them armed, as several men in blue hospital scrubs look on.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) was not immediately able to verify the footage.
From Nepal, Thailand“Here you can see Hamas taking a hostage inside … they’re taking him inside the hospital,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, describing the two men as hostages from Nepal and Thailand.
“We have not yet located both of these hostages,” he added. “We do not know where they are.”
The CCTV footage appears to have been shot on the morning that Hamas gunmen began storming southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping some 240 others, according to Israeli authorities.
Since then, Israel has pounded Gaza relentlessly from the air, land and sea with officials in the Hamas-run territory saying 13,000 people have been killed, mostly civilians.
“These findings prove that the Hamas terrorist organization used the Shifa hospital complex on the day of the massacre as terrorist infrastructure,” the military and intelligence services said in a statement.
Hamas dismissed the footage. It had said that it had taken several captives to hospital for treatment, “particularly because some had been wounded in airstrikes” by Israel, senior political bureau member Izzat al-Rishq said in a statement. —AFP
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‘SECURITY CAMERA FOOTAGE’
