Israel’s Army Radio reported Tuesday that the manager of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza told interrogators that Hamas terrorists had commandeered the hospital and forced staff to do its bidding, believing that the IDF would not strike there.
An interrogation tape of Ahmed Mohammed Hassan Al-Kahlot, the manger of the hospital, apparently released by the Israel Security Agency (ISA), was the source of the report.
In the video, Kahlot is seen saying that he had joined Hamas in 2010 and attained a high military rank within the organization.
Kahlut is seen on the video telling an interrogator that Hamas used to hide its fighters in the hospital, convinced that they would not be targeted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Kahlut also said that hospital staff members joined Hamas, and that the hospital had effectively been transformed into a military installation for the organization, including for holding hostages. He also admitted that Hamas had used private ambulances to transport hostages and to transport the bodies of Hamas terrorists.
He added that the leaders of Hamas had turned out to be “cowards” who had abandoned Palestinians to fend for themselves while they themselves hid. “They destroyed us.”
Update: The IDF and ISA released its own translation of quotes from the interrogation:
“They hide in hospitals because for them a hospital is a safe place. They won’t be targeted when they are inside a hospital”.
”I know 16 employees in the hospital – doctor, nurse, paramedic, or clerks… who also have different positions in al-Qassam”.
“There are offices where the Hamas leader and two of the senior officials were. There’s a place where the soldier was in (the kidnapped soldier). There’s a place for the interrogators, internal security, and special security. All of them have private telephone lines inside the hospital”.
”They [Hamas] have a private ambulance, even it color and the way it’s painted are different, and it doesn’t have a license plate. They used it to transport the soldier [kidnapped] and transport bodies… It didn’t assist us with transporting the injured”.
”I begged him to take someone to the Indonesian Hospital, take to Shifa [hospital], but he would refused. His mission is more important”.
“The leaders of Hamas are cowards. They left us in the field while they hide in secret places… They have destroyed us”.
As Breitbart News noted, 70 terrorists in the hospital surrendered to Israel after a firefight last week, and Israeli soldiers discovered weapons inside the hospital — including guns that were hidden inside the NICU unit.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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