The IDF has completely encircled Gaza City and is slowly closing in on the center of the encircled area, the Al-Shifa Hospital. Israeli intelligence believes that Hamas has built an extensive underground complex underneath the hospital. It includes a reported launching point for rockets located adjacent to the hospital. If IDF forces capture it intact those claims could be proven.
The tunnel network under the city is extensive, and senior Hamas leaders who have taken shelter in the tunnels move from one to another on a regular basis to keep Israeli intelligence from locating them (and, consequently, to remain alive).
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies wrote this about tunnels and civilians used as human shields
“During an organized 2016 uprising at the Gaza border, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar admitted the group “decided to turn that which is most dear to us — the bodies of our women and children — into a dam blocking the collapse in Arab reality.”
After acknowledging Hamas builds tunnels to protect fighters but not civilians, Abu Marzouk ventured that it is the job of the United Nations, not Hamas, to protect civilians.
It might have been hard to say that with a straight face, since Hamas also has a long record of turning UN facilities into part of its wall of human shields.”
It’s likely that some hostages are also being held inside the tunnels. Hamas treats its’ captives differently, depending upon how they are categorized. Foreign nationals and Israelis with foreign passports are given the best treatment. Other Israeli non-combatant civilians are held separately and cared for better than the last group. That group is Israeli soldiers, and males of military age. They are tortured, either physically or by deprivation of food and water. Recently, Hamas has claimed some hostages were killed by Israeli air attacks. That may be just a propaganda ploy to keep some tunnels and bunkers safe from IDF attack.
The possible section of the Hamas complex under the hospital that I find most interesting is the media control center. It coordinates Al-Aqsa TV and radio broadcasts and supervises reports released to foreign news media. That includes all the items emanating from the Gaza Health Ministry, especially casualty figures, numbers of women and children harmed, and the ever-recurring warnings that medical services are on the verge of collapse and will result in more deaths.
This is what a report from the Hudson Institute had to say about Hamas censorship in 2014.
“Foreign correspondents understand what Hamas expects of them and the consequences for failing to play by its rules. Western media, from Hamas’s perspective, are in Gaza for one purpose only—to document Israeli attacks. Taken out of context, without photos and videos of Hamas missiles launched from civilian areas, Israeli military action will be seen as wanton violence. If reporters based in Gaza can’t report on Hamas’s missiles and rockets, or even Hamas fighters, then who is Israel firing on? Unarmed Palestinians, of course. Hamas sees Western media as the documentarians of Israeli war crimes, and only that”
Wetherhorn 