Was Hamas ever hiding below Al Shifa Hospital, in tunnels built by Israel?

Israeli forces raided the Al Shifa Hospital on November 15 and killed at least 30 Palestinian civilians.

The forces’ stated purpose of the raid was to “expose the terror activities within the hospital”.

For Israel that means uncovering an alleged Hamas command station, located within tunnels under Al Shifa.

Israel has so far failed to provide any evidence whatsoever of the station or tunnels. Further, given what’s been on the public record for years, it’s dubious whether it existed as a Hamas hideout at all.

In 2014, The Tablet reported the existence of a “Hamas bunker” beneath Al Shifa, built by Israel itself.

“Back in 1983, when Israel still ruled Gaza,” says the article, “they built a secure underground operating room [before it was turned into the supposed bunker] and tunnel network beneath Shifa hospital”.

The article further maintains that this was “one among several reasons why Israeli security sources [in 2014] are so sure that there is a main Hamas command bunker in or around the large cement basement beneath the area of Building 2 of the Hospital”.

In 2021, however, Israel stated that after conducting an investigation into its bombing of an area near the hospital it found that “underground military facilities [allegedly belonging to Hamas] collapsed causing the foundations of the civilian houses above them to collapse as well leading to unintended casualties”.

To what extent that precisely involves the total destruction of any possible Hamas command centre and tunnels is not clear.

Nonetheless, it is unlikely that Hamas would continue to hide directly beneath or within the vicinity of Al Shifa, given that Israel announced that it’s known about Hamas’ presence there. This includes infrastructure created by Israel, which – it stands to reason – it would know how to effectively penetrate and ultimately eliminate, killing anyone who might be inside.

Echoing this view, Ali Abunimah, editor and journalist at The Electronic Intifada recently observed during a webinar: “Israel wants you to believe the following propositions. First, that Hamas is stupid enough to use a bunker that Israel itself built and therefore presumably knows everything about.

“Second, that Hamas is stupid and careless enough to keep using this bunker, even though newspapers in Israel and the United States have for years published its precise alleged location.

Third, Hamas is still using so-called underground military infrastructure under Al Shifa that Israel claims to have destroyed more than two years ago.

Yes, you are supposed to believe that the same Hamas that managed to take Israel completely by surprise on October 7 in a sophisticated military occupation that destroyed Israel's southern command is dumb enough to hide its most valuable assets in exactly the place Israel says it is”.

Abunimah’s breakdown is also, to his credit, rather comical. For it illuminates how absurd it would be for Hamas to hide in the same place that would make it particularly vulnerable to Israel, let alone for the public to believe this.

Whether Hamas was actually under Al Shifa, something adamantly denied by Palestinian health care workers at the hospital, does not change the fact that Israel was wrong to undertake the raid itself, in addition to other recent Israeli-led violent activity against hospitals in Gaza (this of course includes the Israeli bombing of Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in mid-October that killed over 500 people).

Such wrongness is in keeping with international law, specifically the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts.

According to the protocol, "medical units and transports shall be respected and protected at all times and shall not be the object of attack".

Relatively little coverage in Western mainstream media has rigorously investigated how Israel would be held accountable for violating the protocol. Instead, much of the coverage tends to repeat Israel’s claim that Hamas, a "terrorist" organization committed to destroying Israel, was hiding under the hospital.

This biased reporting contributes to the public not only accepting the still unfounded claim but also siding with Israel as it continues to kill tens of thousands of Palestinians, which Israel argues is the cost of dealing with the situation.

Any credible media outlet should, at the very least, question and scrutinize this narrative. Now, more than a month since Israel initiated its murderous campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, there is still no solid proof that Israel's actions in Gaza extend beyond devastating a defenseless population.