Once again the allegations of Israeli occupation forces (IOF) regarding the existence of tunnels dug by the Palestinian resistance under Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics in the Gaza Strip have been refuted.
The IOF published on November 5 a briefing by its spokesman Daniel Hagar in which he claimed that the Israeli occupation soldiers discovered during their ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip a tunnel used by Hamas in the garden of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics which was funded by the Qatari government.
Avichay Adraee the head of the Arab media division in the Israeli army also posted the video on his X account alleging that Israeli soldiers have uncovered an underground structure inside the medical compound.
The video showed ground openings in the hospital garden which the IOF claimed were a Hamas tunnel which was quickly proven wrong.
The video began to spread on Arab social media platforms where it provoked a state of ridicule among the pioneers of the virtual world of the Israeli army regarding the ease of finding the tunnel at a time when the Palestinian resistance factions are keen to hide their tunnels completely and without leaving any signs or signals indicating them according to the comments.
Al Jazeera Net monitored some of the comments about the origin of the openings shown by the video and during the search process it was found that the hospital was established in 2016 by the company Sakka and Khudari which was documenting the construction process of the project through its accounts. In 2014 the company published aerial footage of the project showing the rooms of the water tank during the construction process.
The master construction plan of the hospital also showed the presence of a concrete water tank and openings in the hospital garden.
A wider search through the hospital’s social media accounts revealed that the openings were found in most of the photos the hospital administration took of its patients in its garden on different dates.
Civil engineer Saad Al-Wahidi who was part of the team working on the hospital project explained why there are such openings in the garden of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital in Gaza saying that these openings are an upper nozzle for an underground concrete tank dedicated to filling water and the side pipe is for ventilation and is used to exit air from the tank during its filling.
Al-Wahidi added that the reservoir is located on the eastern side of the hospital and is allocated as a reserve balance for the hospital’s water and for irrigating its garden as well.
Users of social media described the IOF’s narrative as false stressing that the Israeli army spreads lies to justify its bombing and targeting of hospitals. Others wondered about the IOF’s failure to publish pictures of the tunnel entrances according to some comments.
On the other hand the Chairman of the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza Ambassador Mohammed Al-Emadi expressed the State of Qatar’s strong condemnation of the IOF’s allegations that there are tunnels under Sheikh Hamad Hospital in Gaza without concrete evidence or independent investigation.
He considered it a blatant attempt to justify the Israeli targeting of civilians hospitals schools population gatherings and shelters for the displaced.
Al-Emadi confirmed in a statement to the Qatar News Agency QANA that Sheikh Hamad Hospital in Gaza was established transparently in accordance with the highest international standards under the supervision of the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza with Israeli approval for medical purposes and benefited thousands of people in Gaza.
He stressed that such allegations should not be made arbitrarily and the Israeli narrative must not be taken as de facto without an independent investigation into the allegations they constitute while warning of using them as a pretext to target civil facilities.
The government media office (GMO) in Gaza has previously refuted the IOF’s allegations. The GMO and Hamas Movement have expressed willingness to receive any international committee to be formed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to visit hospitals in Gaza and verify the lie of the Israeli allegations.
