US intelligence agencies agreed with Israel, journalists that have never stepped foot in a Gaza hospital disagreed. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle: just because injured combatants are taken to a hospital doesn’t necessarily mean that that hospital is a military command centre. However at least one hospital was more than likely (but not certainly!) used as such.
The tunnels under the Al Haifa hospital were built by Israel and are widely acknowledged to exist.
Do the other hospitals have bunkers and tunnels? I doubt it. They would not be easy to add after initial construction.
The American medical professionals who served in Gaza certainly disagree with Israel. Do you believe them or do you believe the same Israel who made up "40 beheaded babies"?
> The 99 signatories to this letter spent a combined 254 weeks inside Gaza’s largest hospitals and clinics. We wish to be absolutely clear: not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities.
> We urge you to see that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for torture, disappearance, and murder.
Are they working in these hospitals only with the approval and permission of HAMAS, or are they free to voice an independent opinion without fear of reprisal from armed militants in the middle of a war where a doctor with their head blown off is just a statistic?
I'm not just saying this as an argument, this kind of bias in reporting from volunteers in war zones is common. There was some war in Africa where medics from Doctors Without Borders got in serious trouble because they spoke up about atrocities. If I remember correctly, some were abducted and/or killed. I do remember the head of MSF saying in an interview that they have a policy of keeping quiet because "that's what it takes to be allowed to provide services" under those conditions.
Also: "not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities".
Israel was saying that HAMAS had built tunnels under the hospitals, which doctors would not have been allowed into and would not have seen. They most probably told the truth, but that truth may just what they saw... they just didn't see the tunnels.
Last but not least: How would they know if activity was "militant"? HAMAS generally does not wear uniforms!
PS: I do think that at most one hospital might have been used as a HAMAS office... for something. Quite possibly a military medical office, coordinating care for the wounded or something similar. I wouldn't be surprised if Isreali drones saw 'x' HAMAS members walk into the hospital and hence they marked it as a "HAMAS office" based on that intelligence alone. (I always assume there's idiots on both sides of a war. It's an effective and accurate model of reality.)
> Israel was saying that HAMAS had built tunnels under the hospitals
If the tunnels are under the hospitals, why bomb the hospitals then? It won't destroy the tunnels. It will only destroy the hospitals.
IDK what else to say, for some reason you are eager on believing that the same Israel who invented 40 beheaded babies, and the US intelligence who lies about Iraq WMD, are somehow a beacon of truth, despite them never providing a shred of evidence.
The tunnels under the Al Haifa hospital were built by Israel and are widely acknowledged to exist.
Do the other hospitals have bunkers and tunnels? I doubt it. They would not be easy to add after initial construction.