[News] IDF Knew Real Hamas HQ While Lying About al-Shifa

[Anti-Imperialist News]

consortiumnews.com
<https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/23/idf-knew-real-hamas-hq-while-lying-about-al-shifa/>
IDF Knew Real Hamas HQ While Lying About al-Shifa
November 23, 2023
------------------------------

*While telling the world that Hamas HQ was under al-Shifa Hospital, the IDF
had already found the actual command center 8.5km away, reports Gareth
Porter.*

<https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/al-Shifa-Damage_in_Gaza_Strip_during_the_October_2023_-_47.jpeg>

Wounded Palestinians wait for treatment at the overcrowded emergency ward
of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City following an Israeli airstrike on October
11, 2023. (Wafa (Q2915969) in contract with a local company
(APAimages)??/Wikimedia Commons

*By* *Gareth Porter* <https://consortiumnews.com/tag/gareth-porter/>
*Special to Consortium News*

*A*lthough corporate news media have made it clear they don’t buy the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claim that al-Shifa Hospital has been a cover
for a Hamas command and control center and weapons armory, Western media
have failed to report a much bigger story.

The IDF and the Israeli government already knew when they launched their
propaganda campaign about al-Shifa that Hamas had no military command and
control facility hidden there because it had already found the complex
kilometers away.

As *Consortium News *reported
<https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/15/israeli-deceit-the-battle-of-shifa-hospital/>
last week, for 15 years the Israelis claimed  Hamas was operating its
primary command and control base from a tunnel underneath al-Shifa. After
the Israeli bombing campaign against Gaza began in October, the Israeli
military amplified that message to press its contention that by hiding the
Hamas high command, al-Shifa Hospital had lost its immunity from military
operations under the law of war, and could now legitimately be taken over
by force.

On Nov. 11, IDF spokesman Richard Hecht declared that al-Shifa was the
“main hub of Hamas activity;” *Newsweek* reported
<https://www.newsweek.com/israel-hamas-gaza-shifa-critical-1842857> the IDF
regarded al-Shifa Hospital as “Hamas’s main command post” and the *Times of
Israel *headlined
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-hamas-compound-israeli-troops-expect-to-find-under-gaza-citys-shifa-hospital/>
“Hamas leaders again hiding under hospital”.

The crescendo of Israeli propaganda about al-Shifa being a “human shield”
for Hamas came with a long report published by *The New York Times *on Nov.
14. It was based on interviews with eight present and former intelligence
and defense officials, describing a vast military command complex
<http://www.apple.com/> under al-Shifa with multiple levels.

But something quite unexpected had happened during this new round of press
stories on al-Shifa that completely demolished the entire IDF story line:
the IDF had gained control of the real Hamas command and control center in
an area where the Hamas leadership had previously had their above-ground
offices in the Al Atatra neighborhood, in the extreme northwest of Beit
Lahiya city, 8.5km away from al-Shifa.

After that office building was demolished, the IDF discovered a major
tunnel facility that was quite certain had been the central headquarters
for the Hamas high command — the command and control center for the entire
war.

As the IDF leaked to *The Jerusalem Post*
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-773237#:~:text=The%20IDF%20on%20Tuesday%20unveiled,took%20over%20several%20days%20ago.>
in a story published Nov. 14, the discovery was made “several days ago” of
a tunnel with an elevator that reached thirty meters underground, compared
with only five meters underground in other tunnels.  Furthermore it had
been equipped with oxygen, air conditioning and more advanced
communications than seen anywhere else.

*Discovery of Real Hamas High Command Bunker*

Map shows route to al-Shifa Hospital from the real HQ. (Google Maps)

That major IDF discovery, made on or before the Nov. 11 false stories about
al-Shifa, threatened to undermine the Israeli political campaign to justify
the IDF’s takeover and destruction of Gaza’s hospitals on the grounds that
they were “human shields” for Hamas.

Al-Shifa Hospital was the centerpiece of that campaign, based on the claim
that it was hiding the high command of Hamas in a tunnel underneath it.
Obviously the IDF and the extreme right-wing Israel government would want
to stop all further publicity about the discovery of the actual Hamas high
command’s underground base.

No story about the discovery of the real Hamas high command bunker has been
published inside Israel or elsewhere in the nearly two weeks since the
detailed *Jerusalem Post *piece on Nov. 14. Somehow the Israeli government
and media have been able to completely suppress the discovery of the Hamas
headquarters, despite the fact that a number of foreign news media have
offices in Tel Aviv and the story is still available on the internet.

Instead of forcing a major climb-down by the IDF and the Netanyahu and the
Biden administrations, the discovery of the real Hamas underground
high-command center merely brought a slight revision in the wording used to
refer to the issue.

*Sullivan Revises Wording of Issue*

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaking to reporters
in August 2021. (White House/ Erin Scott)

That slight nuance was introduced not by the IDF, but by U.S. National
Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Nov. 13, when he said:

“You can see even from open-source reporting that Hamas does use hospitals,
along with a lot of *other civilian facilities*, for command and control
<https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/13/politics/al-shifa-hospital-us-intelligence/index.html>,
for storing weapons, for housing its fighters.” [emphasis added.]

And a U.S. official familiar with “U.S. intelligence” who may also have
been Sullivan, commented that Hamas had a “command node”
<https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/13/politics/al-shifa-hospital-us-intelligence/index.html>
under al-Shifa Hospital, using a term that Israeli officials apparently
adopted in light of the new discovery of the actual high-command bunker.

Thus the IDF arrived at al-Shifa late at night on Nov. 15, a day after *The
Jerusalem Post* story, to begin the process of the Israeli takeover with a
propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the American public in particular
that Hamas had been inside the hospital.

Several hours later that morning, in a seven-minute video inside the MRI
building, IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus showed “grab bags” of military
gear with AK-47s, grenades and uniforms neatly arranged on the floor. He
insisted that Hamas had used the MRI room to store weapons and military
gear.  He also  produced one computer, which he suggested had been found to
contain “incriminating evidence” of military relevance.

The most obvious problem with this seven-minute video, however, is that it
showed nothing that could not have been easily brought into the building by
the IDF itself. The more serious problem with the presentation is that it
offered no plausible reason for Hamas to have hidden a few dozen small
weapons and other military gear in the MRI room of a hospital and then
supposedly having left them there when they departed.

There was simply no need for the Hamas to store weapons there.  After all,
Hamas is estimated to have 150 to 300 miles of space
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israeli-soldiers-will-face-labyrinth-hamas-tunnels-rcna121459>for
such storage in its vast tunnel network.

*Hagari Video Deleted*

<https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/SoI-War_23-10-27_IDF_07-03.jpeg>

IDF Telegram channel. (https://t.me/idfofficial/4666/Wikimedia Commons)

A much bigger problem for IDF credibility on al-Shifa is that on Oct. 27,
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari presented an artist’s conception showing that
Hamas had taken over parts of five different buildings at al-Shifa Hospital
and was using all of them to plan and coordinate its military activities.

He also showed a drawing of the structure of the main building, which he
insisted was based on Israeli intelligence, showing that an underground
floor of the main building was completely controlled by Hamas. He also
insisted that there was an entrance within the hospital to that underground
floor.

The Hagari presentation came before the discovery of the actual Hamas
high-command bunker underneath the above-ground Hamas high-command office
in Beit Lahiya. The IDF has now eliminated the entire video
<https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/hamas-israel-war-23/briefings-by-idf-spokesperson-rear-admiral-daniel-hagari/october-press-briefings/press-briefing-by-idf-spokesperson-radm-daniel-hagari-october-28th-10-45/>of
that long, detailed and illustrated presentation by Hagari from its
website, because it would become a major embarrassment to the IDF once the
full truth is known.

In recent days, the IDF has fixed the world’s attention on a tunnel, the
opening of which was discovered very close to the outer fence
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRra0hvjAL0>of al-Shifa Hospital grounds.
The tunnel was found by the IDF to be 10m deep, compared with the 30m deep
abandoned high command tunnel.

On Nov. 21, the IDF announced it had breached the heavy blast door of the
tunnel, meaning that it could now determine what lay on the other side, if
anything. But given that the IDF has already discovered the real Hamas
command bunker elsewhere — and the absence of evidence of a connection
from  hospital buildings to a tunnel — the IDF is unlikely to find such a
connection from the tunnel to the hospital.

The real story of the Israeli effort to sell its argument that Hamas took
over al-Shifa and other hospitals to coordinate attacks is the massive
deception aimed at U.S. media and public opinion in order to justifying
Israel’s war of obliteration
<https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/22/chris-hedges-israels-war-on-hospitals/>
of the population of Gaza.

That campaign of deceit has had the full-throated support of the Biden
administration, which stands equally guilty of misleading the American
people in its support for an illicit Israeli war.

The failure of the Israeli propaganda campaign has been so decisive that
most major media organizations have explicitly distanced themselves from
the Israeli claims about al-Shifa, and several have shown either field
reporters or analysts in the studio declaring explicitly that the evidence
displayed by the Israelis had not proved their case at all.

*Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian
writing on U.S. national security policy. His latest book, Manufactured
Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, was published in
February of 2014. Follow him on Twitter: **@GarethPorter*
<https://twitter.com/GarethPorter>*.*

*The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not
reflect those of Consortium News.*

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