IDF releases video displaying tunnel they declare ‘utilized by Hamas’ beneath Gaza’s al Shifa hospital
Israel’s navy has launched a video of what it claims is a 55-metre tunnel utilized by Hamas beneath Gaza’s largest hospital.
The footage, revealed on social media, is “more proof” that Hamas is utilizing sufferers as “human shields”, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) declare.
The video, at al Shifa, begins with photographs of what’s described as an “operational tunnel shaft”, which appears to be like like a round gap within the floor.
The shaft is alleged to drop 10 metres, negotiated utilizing a three-metre ladder and a spiral staircase for the opposite seven metres, the IDF stated.
At the underside is a tunnel in two sections of 5 metres and 50 metres, the IDF added.
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“The tunnel entrance contains various defence mechanisms, such as a blast-proof door and a firing hole, in an attempt by Hamas to block Israeli forces from entering,” the IDF stated on X, previously often called Twitter.
“For weeks we’ve been telling the world about Hamas’s cynical use of the residents of Gaza and patients of Shifa Hospital as human shields. Here is more proof.”
There are blurry photographs of the “blast door” and its firing gap.
The tunnel itself has flat sides and a concave roof.
The video was filmed on Friday 17 November in accordance with a date stamp on the footage.
The IDF has stated Hamas has a command centre beneath the hospital – a declare denied by Hamas and by hospital workers.
Earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) stated al Shifa hospital – as soon as the biggest, most superior and best-equipped hospital in Gaza – had basically stopped functioning as a medical facility.
A workforce of UN and WHO specialists carried out a “high-risk operation” on Saturday to get contained in the hospital, regardless of heavy preventing reported to be ongoing close by and a mass exodus of sufferers, docs and different displaced individuals sheltering there.
A WHO spokesperson stated: “Due to time limits associated with the security situation, the team was able to spend only one hour inside the hospital, which they described as a ‘death zone’ and the situation as ‘desperate’.
“Signs of shelling and gunfire have been evident. The workforce noticed a mass grave on the entrance of the hospital and have been instructed greater than 80 individuals have been buried there.”
They stated the power had successfully stopped functioning as a hospital.