Israeli Military Says Troops Captured Hundreds of Terrorists in Gaza Hospital

Israeli forces have detained hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists including a number of security officials and military commanders during its extended raid into Gaza’s biggest hospital, the military’s main spokesperson said.

Israeli troops entered the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the early hours of Monday morning and have been combing through the sprawling complex, which the military says is connected to a tunnel network used as a base for Palestinian terrorists.

It says troops have killed hundreds of fighters in the operation and also detained over 500 suspects, including 358 members of the Islamist terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the largest number captured at the same time since the beginning of the war nearly six months ago.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel‘s main military spokesperson, said special forces units had used “deception tactics” to surprise the fighters and had severely damaged Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Among the detainees were three senior Islamic Jihad military commanders and two Hamas officials responsible for operations in the West Bank as well as other Hamas internal security officials.

“Those who did not surrender to our forces fought against our forces and were eliminated,” Hagari told a briefing late on Thursday, during which he displayed a composite picture of what were described as detainees.

On Friday, the military said some of the photographs were of terrorists who had not been detained but whose pictures were included through human error.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, said the misidentification and the inclusion of pictures of medical staff and people outside the country showed the Israeli military was spreading false narratives to justify its assault on the hospital.

Israel faced criticism last November when troops first raided Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital before the war. The troops uncovered tunnels there, which they said had been used as command and control centers by Hamas.

In recent days, Hamas spokespeople have said that the dead announced in previous Israeli statements were not terrorists but patients and displaced people.