Israel’s former Prime Minister has said that the bunker discovered under al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip was constructed by Israel many years ago. The statement comes days after Israel laid siege on Shifa hospital after dropping bombs on it, claiming it was a key command centre of the Hamas militants.
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, former Israel PM Ehud Barak said that "it is already known for many years that they (the Hamas) have bunkers originally built by Israeli constructors underneath Shifa".
When asked to clarify by Amanpour if he mispoke, Barak said that the underground space was built “many decades ago”, when Tel Aviv was in control of the place, allegedly to enable more space for the hospital’s operation. He claimed that it was “used as Hamas command outpost.. A junction of several tunnels that were part of the system”.
“I don’t know to what extent it is major. It is probably not the only one. Several others are under other hospitals or sensitive places,” he claimed.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of building underground tunnels and using them as command posts. Last week, the Israeli military released a video footage of its troops showing reporters the entrance of a tunnel that they claimed was used by Hamas operatives.
They also released images of guns and other weapons they allegedly found inside the tunnel and said a captive soldier had been executed and two foreign hostages were held at the site. Hamas denied all the claims.
Israeli forces have gone to the extent of justifying the bombings on thousands of civilians as “collateral damage” resulting from attacks on their military target. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu had vowed to “end Hamas” and “stand firm against the world if necessary”.
Meanwhile, more than 13,000 civilians have died in Gaza, according to the latest data with Palestinian health officials. Streets have turned into mass graveyards. Officials have said that they no longer have the equipment, manpower or fuel to search properly for the living, let alone the dead.
They have lost the ability to count the dead because of the collapse of parts of the enclave's health system and the difficulty of retrieving bodies from areas overrun by Israeli tanks and troops.
