IDF Says It Discovered Massive Hamas Tunnel Running Under Hospital and University

Charles Hilu(Free Beacon)

The Israel Defense Forces said Monday it discovered a tunnel that connects the north of the Gaza Strip to the southern part and runs underneath a hospital and a university.

Reaching over six miles in length, the tunnel lies beneath both the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital and Israa University, the military said in a release. It added that Hamas used the tunnel to move terrorists between parts of the enclave.

Israel has long claimed that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes. Earlier this month, the IDF said it uncovered a data center for the group underneath the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the international body’s aid organization for Palestinian refugees.

The United States twice confirmed—once in November and once in January—that both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terror group in Gaza, used Al Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in Gaza, as a command center.

In December, the IDF released a video of Kamal Adwan Hospital chief Ahmad Kahalot, who confessed to being a Hamas general and said the group used his facility to hide its military and civilian officials. He also said that 16 staffers in the hospital were part of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.