Israel: unequivocal proof
By Richard North - November 23, 2023
While the British media focus on the non-event of the chancellor’s autumn statement, there have been important developments in the Shifa Hospital tunnels, which have scarcely merited any journalistic attention.
The best the BBC seems to be able to manage is a brief reference and a few seconds showing of a nine-minute video on its news channel, all in the context of a wide-ranging interview with Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy – with no follow-up reference on the website.
The last reference was days ago in an undated report, when in the typical pompous style of the BBC, correspondent Nick Beale – 50 miles away in Jerusalem – declared: “The BBC has not been able to verify the video which was presented at a news briefing by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday”.
Yet, what is currently on show are the results of a painstaking exploration of the territory beyond the tunnel exposed a few days after the entrance had been found, up to a blast door equipped with a firing port.
At the time, the Israeli military had stopped at the door, taking the time to check for booby-traps. But now they are well past that point and have been guiding journalists through what is indisputably a major tunnel complex under the Qatari wing of that 22-acre Shifa Hospital site (pictured).
Just so that there can be no doubt, the IDF has also posted location shots taken by an airborne drone, showing exactly where the tunnel opening is located in relation to the hospital buildings.
A Jerusalem Post journalist – one of the few to be taken down the tunnels – described the scene as “testimony to how important this location was to Hamas”.
Not only were extensive tunnels seen – with multiple entrance points, some of which were still blocked – each lined with the trademark concrete panels and arches, there were a number of tiled rooms, including one large enough to be a meeting or an operations room – or possibly a dormitory. The sole equipment at the time of viewing was two metal-framed beds and a large modern air conditioning unit.
Additionally, there was a kitchenette, a toilet enclosure and a separate bathroom fitted with toilet and shower. Fittings were plumbed into drainage and connected to a water supply drawn from the hospital above, as was the electricity supply, while the cooling unit for the air conditioning was in the hospital yard – the existence of which is said to have betrayed the location of the tunnel.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari explained that the tunnels under Shifa “keep on going to different kind of bases, meaning commanders of Hamas go to the hospital, give directions to the forces, go out by these tunnels, proceed their terror acts against our soldiers, firing rockets on our civilians, and go back directly to the hospital as a human shield”.
Despite the importance of the discoveries, the news agency Reuters offers a grudging report headlined: “Israeli army displays tunnel (singular) beneath Al Shifa it says served as Hamas hideout”, as if they (plural) could have been used for anything else.
After a brief description of the finds, which hardly does justice to them, the agency goes on to state that “Israel has long accused Hamas of using the Shifa hospital complex as a command and control centre as part of a wider strategy that seeks to hide its forces among the civilian population”.
Predictably, it quickly adds: “Hamas and hospital officials have denied the accusation, and the hospital site has been at the centre of accusations of war crimes on both sides, with Palestinians accusing Israel of targeting hospitals and Israel saying the sites were being used to shelter armed fighters”.
Yet the IDF spokesman has some important questions to ask the “international community”, particularly as to what they propose to do in the future to prevent Hamas using hospitals as part of their war machine – assuming there is a Hamas in the future.
As to the rest of the media reaction, even the Telegraph barely gives the finds a mention, offering a single photograph on its live news blog, with no actual text report, tucked in with dozens of other references to the conflict. The Guardian seems to make no mention of the finds at all and neither, it seems, does The Times.
In fact, the only British media organs of substance that have offered separate reports are ITV News and, latterly, the Daily Mail referring to an “alleged tunnel” – although Fox News – accessible to some British viewers – also obliged.
The point that seems to have been missed here is that this latest evidence is the accumulation of a steadily aggregating flow, which latterly even included CCTV stills of a terrorist actually delivering a child hostage to the hospital, alongside shots of vehicles known to have been stolen during the 7 October raids.
Any one piece of evidence can, with determination, be dismissed as ambiguous or inconclusive, and a particular Guardian columnist has been especially sceptical (unreasonably so, in the view of many), but the steady accumulation of evidence, including the testimony of those few witnesses who have dared speak out, makes for an irrefutable case of what amounts to Hamas’s abuse of places protected under international law.
As it stands, through JNS, the IDF is saying that its latest findings “unequivocally prove the modus operandi of the terrorist organisation Hamas, which systematically operates from hospitals.”
Its statement goes on to say: “The Hamas terrorist organisation builds underground complexes under hospitals while exploiting the hospital infrastructure and conducts warfare from them”.
That, of course, reminds us that Shifa Hospital is not the only site where Hamas has abused international protection. Multiple tunnels in other hospitals have been detected, as well as in schools, mosques and private homes.
Altogether, so far, the IDF claim to have located approximately 400 of what they call “terror tunnel shafts”, all of which they say have been exposed and destroyed.
In addition, there have been substantial finds of weapons, ammunition, explosives, communications equipment, laptop computers, drones, and other equipment, with significant accumulations from continued searches of Shifa Hospital, including a belt-fed machine gun – doubtless what the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen would consider every well-equipped hospital security department should have.
For sure, it has been a busy news day, and much of the Gaza news has been devoted to the impending ceasefire (or pause) and the hostage exchange – which seems to have been delayed until Friday.
But there is no obvious explanation as to why the media, having made such a big deal about the IDF occupying hospitals, should not revisit the scenes when good evidence is uncovered to indicate precisely why the troops had to go in – at some considerable risk to themselves.
Even ostensibly sympathetic newspapers seem unable or unwilling to follow this evidence to its logical conclusion, that as long at Hamas continue to breach international law, using civilians as human shields, and hospitals and other protected building as cover for its military installations, the IDF is wholly justified in occupying the facilities.
Thus, despite the desperate need for an antidote to the politicised narrative which condones Palestinian violence, the media once again has failed to step up to the plate.
