Israel also said no further evidence of Hamas activities in the hospital was scheduled to be made public for now, following the release Wednesday of photographs and video showing small caches of rifles and laptops that the Israel Defense Forces identified as Hamas material. The military did not show evidence of tunnels or a command center it has said exists under the hospital.
“I can confirm now that the operation is still ongoing,” an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said Thursday. “All the publishable evidence was released.”
The IDF said special forces soldiers were continuing to search the hospital compound one building at a time, floor-by-floor. “The operation is shaped by our understanding that there is well-hidden terrorist infrastructure in the complex,” according to a statement.
An official in the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that any further evidence would be made public as soon as possible and that journalists would be given a chance to tour the sites.
Israel had hoped the controversial raid would turn up firm evidence of substantial militant activity in al-Shifa, a European diplomat told the Post on Thursday. But the absence of clear proof to date has already led Western allies, including the United States, to increase pressure on Israel to accept a pause in fighting, said the diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
Commentators in Israel said the military would need to show more evidence to support assertions that Shifa has been a Hamas stronghold for more than a decade
Aid groups said they had lost touch with their teams inside the hospital, and repeated calls to doctors and workers there have gone straight to voice mail.
Mohamed Zaqout, the chief of Gaza’s hospital network who is not at the hospital, said the communications failure has kept his team from determining the condition and location of about 650 patients in al-Shifa, including children and dialysis patients in serious condition. “We have been trying since the morning to communicate and coordinate with the Red Cross to transfer them to hospitals in the southern
Gaza Strip, but there is no result so far,” he said in a phone interview.