On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) stated that U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues David Satterfield told him that Hamas does have tunnels under hospitals, but “when you have a hospital full of wounded people, it cannot be a target ever.”
Host Andrea Mitchell said, “I can tell you that in the briefing we had today with John Kirby, where they were announcing this pause and the agreement with Israel, he was also asked about continuing strikes against hospitals, ambulances, and the like. And he said that there is always a concern that any action against a hospital would be proportional. And then he repeated that there are clear laws of war against that. So, they’re kind of trying to avoid directly criticizing Israel for that. I have been told that Israel does have some central corps — I don’t know if it’s command and control, I don’t know if the U.S. has confirmed that independently, but there is some independent confirmation, I don’t know if you know, whether there are Hamas groups under some of these medical facilities.”
Merkley responded, “I just got off the phone with Ambassador Satterfield, the ambassador to the Middle East for humanitarian affairs. And he will say, based on his many years of experience, he has no doubt that there are tunnels underneath hospitals. But he also said, look, when you have a hospital full of wounded people, it cannot be a target ever.”
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