Row over Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital as IDF yet to prove Hamas' headquarters lie in tunnels beneath

[Eugene]

Source: The Independent

Row over Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital as IDF yet to prove Hamas’ headquarters lie in tunnels beneath

Israel faces pressure to prove claims after the hospital was targeted by IDF soldiers

Tara Cobham
7 minutes ago

The Israeli military is yet to produce evidence proving its claims Hamas’ headquarters lie in the tunnels beneath the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza after it targeted the centre in its attacks.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has justified focusing on the facility by alleging that the “beating heart” of the militants’ operations lies in and under the Strip’s largest hospital, where newborns have been among the hundreds of patients struggling without basic necessities.

Shortly after the US publicly declared that its own intelligence supported Israel’s conclusions, the IDF stormed the hospital early on Wednesday in what it called a “precise and targeted operation”.

The Israeli military displayed guns it said had been found hidden in one building – but it is still yet to release proof of its claims that Hamas has a sophisticated command centre underneath al-Shifa and uses connected tunnels to conceal military operations and to hold hostages.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-al-shifa-hospital-idf-palestine-b2448500.html

Alternate link (no sign-in required): https://news.yahoo.com/row-over-gaza-al-shifa-164523752.html

[Omnipresent]

1. Bibi probably doesn't want to say anything about that..

You know…until after the war.

[ExciteBike66]

2. I think Israeli presence in the hospital is good no matter what they find.

Israel is the only entity capable of ensuring the hospital has fuel and supplies. Hamas has shown it does not care about whether the hospital can function.

[Think. Again.]

3. If there are tunnels...

...from the hospital to the rest of hamas' operation, and the IDF has control of the hospital, then shouldn't the rest of hamas' operation have been destroyed from the tunnels by IDF by now?

[Lithos]

6. Question

Do you think Hamas has a "head" which can be chopped off?

If so, this would be unusual for an asymmetric formation - how many times were the heads of Isis killed? Similar for the Iraqi and Afghanistan insurgencies...

Also, the hospital was "a", not "the" headquarters. Tunnels are likely highly redundant and distributed.

L-

[Think. Again.]

7. Do you realize that...

...you are making the same argument that the people who are calling for a ceasefire are making?: that killing everything that moves in Gaza will not stop hamas?

Also, the IDF seems to disagree with your idea that this little tunnel was just "A" headquarters:

"The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has justified focusing on the facility by alleging that the “beating heart” of the militants’ operations lies in and under the Strip’s largest hospital,..."

[Lithos]

8. Not really

...you are making the same argument that the people who are calling for a ceasefire are making?: that killing everything that moves in Gaza will not stop hamas?

Actually not - what I'm saying is the IDF is not going to win with just a purely military approach. Hamas needs to go, just as much as the extreme RW government of Israel.

However, the argument for a ceasefire is probably bolstered if you consider than any long term "break" in hostilities will result in Israel starting to do an introspection to what has been going on which will likely result in ousting of Netanyahu. Many of his settler-first policies resulted in the over-commitment into the West Bank at the expense of maintaining any focus on Gaza even to the point of ignoring repeated intelligence warnings.

"The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has justified focusing on the facility by alleging that the “beating heart” of the militants’ operations lies in and under the Strip’s largest hospital,..."

Then the IDF will lose as they do not understand asymmetrical warfare. Hamas is playing a much longer game than Israel at the moment. This type of claim is exactly the same claims the US military made against the Iraqi and Afghanistan insurgencies, who somehow rose up immediately again with each decapitation. Remember back when we were killing some head of ISIS every other week and nothing changed? Hamas will simply recreate the next "beating heart" somewhere else - in a mosque, etc.

[Think. Again.]

9. I think we're actually in agreement here...

...I have been getting bashed here on DU since this started because I strongly believe that the caveman mentality of bombing Gaza regardless of civilians being killed is NOT the way this should be handled, and that the only true end of hamas will come when Israel and it's allies find non-violent ways to discredit, de-finance, disrupt, demoralize, and just generally invalidate the hideous ideology that is the only foundation hamas stands on.

In the meantime, yes, of course defend the Israeli civilians against any more attacks by weakening and taking away hamas ability to be violently aggressive, but judging by the pathetic collection of weapons and broken down little rat tunnels that the IDF is claiming is such a threat, it should nct be too hard to scatter (or kill) them and disable their ability to do anything.

[Lithos]

11. We have similar objectives - but different perspectives

Ideally, the situation should have been handled differently. Just as the Palestinians are chastised for missing numerous opportunities for a two state solution, I think Israel has missed numerous opportunities for diffusing the core reasons for Hamas' existence (starting with funding the creation of Hamas in order to fragment the PLO).

i would also not dismiss the engineering prowess of Hamas, nor the depth of their military planning and capabilities. You can google the "rat" tunnels and see they are very well designed featuring electricity and ventilation. They are also quite extensive and well designed.

See:



Hamas is also well armed with RPGs, Anti-tank missiles, MANPads, drones, mortars, improvised munitions along with grenades and assault rifles. What was on display represents something which probably was forgotten when they shifted away from the hospital. Anything else which people expect such as howitzers, tanks, etc. would actually be a waste for Hamas as they would easily targeted by the IDF. Remember, Hamas is fighting an asymmetrical warfare, they need to move quickly, stealthily, and melt away fast when the IDF brings its firepower into play. Hamas is not fighting the IDF which it can not beat, it is fighting Israel - the war is being fought on other fronts than Gaza. That Netanyahu is playing into this means he is playing into Hamas's hands.

No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique. Sun Tzu

[Think. Again.]

12. Something still doesn't sit right....

...with me.

Gaza is a very small area. Above gound ballistic weapons and they're movement would be easily tracked by satellite imagery. The same with any work being done on tunnels, movement of militant groups or supplies, etc, otherwise they wouldn't need tunnels. Covert communications are listened to daily all over the world. And pinpointing targets to destroy individual equipment, tight locations, and even individual human targets is commonplace warfare.

I read a report (with photos) of the IDF showing off an entrance to one of the 'tunnels'. Tunnels are connected, if the IDF has gained access to any point in the hamas tunnel network, then the IDF has gained access to the entire network and every person and thing in it, which is being presented as hamas' core physical infrastructure. If their tunnel network is infiltrated, so are any weapons, communication equipment, supplies, etc. Basically game over.

Again, Gaza is small, this is not a huge sophisticated network by any means.

IDF is a multi-billion dollar operation backed by the intelligence and technology of the world's largest military.

I don't see any legitimate reason why Israel has not already succeeded in destroying the physical attributes of hamas, and apparently they're not even trying to destroy the ideological aspects that keep it alive.

[Lithos]

13. Hmmm

Replace IDF/Israel with US Military/US and Hamas/Gaza with Vietcong/Vietnam. Re-read your statement. Ask yourself why the US did not win Vietnam?

Similarly, the Vietcong had numerous and involved tunnel networks. We often found entrances to them, but taking control was extremely difficult. Think about how many ways you can make a tunnel very deadly to someone you do not want moving in it. IEDs, claymore mines, murder holes, etc.

[sabbat hunter]

4. The fact that

there are tunnels under the hospital at all speaks volumes.

[Lithos]

5. Not sure why this is up for debate

This is a long discussed item which has a long series of commentary and support:

ex: https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/20683/

[Eugene]

10. Bowen: Ceasefire demands will grow without proof of Hamas HQ at Al-Shifa

Source: BBC

Bowen: Ceasefire demands will grow without proof of Hamas HQ at Al-Shifa

17 November 2023

By Jeremy Bowen
BBC international editor

It is now days since Israeli forces entered Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and what appears to be happening on Friday is that they are continuing their search for evidence of this being a key Hamas command centre.

We have to remember that there is no independent scrutiny inside the hospital; journalists cannot move freely into Gaza, and any who are reporting from the site are working under the aegis of the Israeli military.

The evidence Israel has produced, so far, I do not believe to be convincing in terms of the kind of rhetoric Israelis were using about the set-up at the hospital, which suggested this was a nerve centre for the Hamas operation.

If there was a nerve centre there - and there has been speculation about that possibility since 2014 - then the Israelis have not yet revealed definitive evidence of its existence to the outside world.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67453105