In Israeli Video, Detainee Says Hamas Operates Out of Gaza Hospital

As international condemnation mounts over the Israeli military’s arrest late last month of the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, the Israeli military said on Tuesday that it had new evidence that militant groups had used the hospital as a command center.

The military released footage of what it said was an interrogation of one of the more than 240 militants it had arrested in raiding the hospital, saying it backed up Israel’s allegations that Hamas and other armed groups deliberately embed themselves in hospitals in violation of international law.

The New York Times was not able to independently verify the claims made in the video, or to determine the circumstances under which the detainee made the admission. Israel has detained many Gazans in Sde Teiman, an army base in southern Israel, where many have been held in demeaning conditions and in which former detainees described beatings and other abuse. The Israeli military has denied accusations of systematic abuse there.

The short clip the military released shows a young man who identifies himself as Anas Muhammad Faiz al-Sharif, 21, explaining that he had been a cleaning supervisor at Kamal Adwan Hospital, as well as a member of Hamas’s military wing since 2021. In the video, he says that operatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups operated out of the hospital, using it for weapons transfers and distribution, patrols and as an observation post, because they considered it a safe haven that could not be directly targeted by the Israeli military.

Hospitals are protected under international law, even if they provide medical care for combatants, but if they are used for other acts that are “harmful to the enemy,” that can make them legitimate targets for military action. Still, the military must weigh the expected military advantage of any action against the expected harm to civilians, and civilian harm must not be disproportional.

Israel has raided Kamal Adwan before and attacked areas in the vicinity of the hospital. In October, the military detained or expelled most of the hospital’s staff members during a raid that lasted for days. Before his arrest in December, the hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said that the hospital had been attacked many times in recent months.