Israel has released surveillance camera footage from Gaza's biggest hospital Al-Shifa purportedly showing Hamas militants bringing people abducted from Israel to the medical centre. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) identified the hostages as Nepali and Thai citizens.
It also accused the Palestinian militant group of murdering a kidnapped Israeli soldier there.
The video aired by the IDF shows a group of men, which they claim are Hamas operatives, taking an individual to the hospital. He is seen with a visible injury to his arm. The second man is forcefully dragged into the hospital on his feet. He is accompanied by a man with an assault rifle.
EXPOSED: This is documentation from Shifa Hospital from the day of the massacre, October 7, 2023, between the hours of 10:42 a.m and 11:01 a.m. in which hostages, a Nepalese civilian and a Thai civilian, were abducted from Israeli territory are seen surrounded by armed Hamas… pic.twitter.com/a5udjBw4wF
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 19, 2023
Hamas is yet to respond to the video. It had earlier claimed that it took some hostages to hospitals for treatment. "These findings prove that the Hamas terror organisation used Shifa Hospital on the day of the massacre itself as terror infrastructure," the IDF said.
The IDF said it had notified "relevant authorities" about the footage. The Israeli forces also released images showing Hamas men inside the hospital and outside the rooms of the hostages. Another picture was that of stolen IDF vehicles brought to the medical centre.
Another infographic released by the IDF showed the locations near the Shifa complex where the bodies of hostages Yehudit Weiss and Noa Marciano were found.
Though Hamas claimed Marciano, a conscript, was killed in an Israeli air strike, IDF said her injuries were non-life threatening. "According to intelligence information - solid intelligence information - Noa was taken by Hamas terrorists inside the walls of Shifa hospital. There, she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist," IDF chief spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. He added that Noa was kidnapped to an apartment next to Shifa Hospital before she was gunned down by the Hamas.
The IDF also released a video showing part of Hamas’s tunnel network underneath Shifa. The clips were taken using two separate devices that were lowered into a tunnel entrance. The tunnel, running 55 metres in length, is a narrow passage with arched concrete roofing, ending at what the military, in a statement, described as a blast-proof door.
"The tunnel had been accessed through a shaft discovered in a shed within the Shifa compound that contained munitions," an IDF statement said. A second video showed an outdoor shaft opening in the compound.
"This type of door is used by the Hamas terror organisation to block the ability of our forces to enter the organisation’s headquarters and underground assets," the IDF said.
Mounir El Barsh, the Gaza health ministry director, called the Israeli statement on the tunnel a "pure lie". "They have been at the hospital for eight days ... and yet they haven't found anything," he told Al Jazeera television.
