Terror Hive of Hamas Tunnels and Command Rooms Found Under Gaza Hospital: IDF

A Palestinian youth crawls in a tunnel during a graduation ceremony for a training camp run by the Hamas terror group, in Gaza, on Jan. 29, 2015. Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

Under a Gaza hospital, there’s an underground terror hive of tunnels and command rooms used by Hamas, according to Israeli forces, which are battling the terrorist group after it slaughtered hundreds of Israeli civilians, many in gruesome ways after subjecting them to torture.

“Today, I will be revealing intelligence proving that Hamas uses hospitals as terror infrastructures,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Israel’s chief military spokesman, told a news conference on Oct. 27.

Rear Adm. Hagari presented evidence consisting of audio recordings, satellite imagery, and a 3D visualization allegedly showing that Hamas has a vast underground command center under the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza.

“Hamas has turned hospitals into command and control centers and hideouts for Hamas terrorists and commanders,” he said.

Satellite imagery showing the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza that Israel says is being used to hide a vast underground Hamas command center, on Oct. 27, 2023. IDF

Imagery showing the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza that Israel says is being used to hide a vast underground Hamas command center, on Oct. 27, 2023. IDF

A rendering showing what Israel says is a Hamas terror hive of tunnels and command rooms under the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza on Oct. 27, 2023. IDF

Rear Adm. Hagari also provided what he said was an audio recording of a call between two Gazans that seems to confirm that Hamas headquarters are located at the Al Shifa hospital.

After one speaker says that the Israelis have obtained plans for some Hamas underground tunnel networks located under schools, mosques, and hospitals, the other expresses surprise.

The first speaker then says: “Yes, the leadership headquarters are under the Al-Shifa compound.”

“Bathrooms, rooms, headquarters, all under the main compound,” the first speaker then says.

‘A Veritable City Underneath’ Gaza

Hamas official Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of the group’s political bureau, denied the Israeli military’s revelations in a post on Telegram.

“There is no basis in truth to what was reported by the enemy army spokesman,” he wrote, while accusing Israel of spreading lies as “a prelude to committing a new massacre against our people.”

Despite Hamas’s denials, various media reports, academic research, numerous documentaries, and military analyses, all point to a vast network of tunnels and rooms carved out of the landscape underneath Gaza.

“It is a veritable city underneath the cities on Gaza’s surface,” writes John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

A tunnel built underground by Hamas operatives leading from the Gaza Strip into Israel, on Aug. 4, 2014. Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images

“Tunnels will be the vital element of Hamas’s guerrilla warfare strategy. Its fighters will form small hunter-killer teams that move underground, pop up, strike, and pop quickly back into a tunnel.

“Hamas also uses the tunnels to hide and move rockets. These rockets can be remotely detonated or transported to hidden launch sites at the last minute. Hamas will also have many tunnels rigged with hundreds of pounds of explosive to function as tunnel bombs under main roads and buildings that the IDF might be lured into.”

Rockets are fired by Hamas terrorists into Israel from Gaza City on Oct. 7, 2023. Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Commenting on the difficulty of tunnel warfare that Israeli forces face in Gaza, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Iraq’s nine-month-long battle to retake Mosul from the ISIS terrorist group might prove to have been easier than what awaits the Israelis.

Mr. Austin said it’s likely to be “a lot of IEDs [improvised explosive devices], a lot of booby traps, and just a really grinding activity.”

After the last round of intensified hostilities between Hamas and Israel in 2021, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yehya Al-Sinwar, said that only a small portion of the tunnels were destroyed.

“They started saying they destroyed 100 [kilometers] of Hamas tunnels. I am telling you, the tunnels we have in the Gaza Strip exceed 500 [kilometers]. Even if their narrative is true, they only destroyed 20 percent of the tunnels,” he said, per Reuters.

Human Shields

While the Israeli military is said to be highly adept at urban tunnel warfare—Mr. Spencer said of all the forces that he’s studied, the IDF has done the most work to prepare for dealing with terrorists and combatants underground—it is sure to find clearing the Hamas tunnels a challenge.

The task will be made all the more challenging by the fact that many of the several hundred hostages Hamas took during its Oct. 7 raid on Israeli communities are possibly being held in these tunnels. Hamas has a documented history of using human shields to protect their fighters.

“Hamas will likely put civilians and hostages in their tunnels as human shields. All of this means that Israel will have to take a deliberate approach to each of the tunnels they will discover,” Mr. Spencer wrote.

The IDF’s revelations of a network of Hamas tunnels an command centers under the Al Shifa hospital come as Israeli forces have massed outside Gaza and conducted raids into the enclave in preparation for an expected ground offensive to eliminate Hamas after the terror group’s deadly attack on Israel that killed some 1,400 people.

Israeli jets and artillery have pounded the enclave in what they say are precision strikes against legitimate military targets.

More than 7,000 people have been killed in Gaza amid Israeli strikes, according to Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry figures.

The IDF said in its latest operational update that it had increased its air strikes in Gaza, targeting what it says is terrorist infrastructure, and vowed to expand its ground operations later in the evening of Oct. 27.