‘The leaders of Hamas are cowards. They left us in the field while they hid in secret places… They have destroyed us.’
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Ahmed Kahlot, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabalya, told Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency during an interrogation that Hamas used the hospital for military purposes.
Hamas was given privileges to use the hospital for military actions including hiding its key members, moving terrorists around, and holding a captured soldier.
Despite the risk to patients and staff, Kahlot said that Hamas terrorists “hide in hospitals because for them a hospital is a safe place. They won’t be targeted when they are inside a hospital.”
In the hospital, Hamas had access to special offices with private phone lines for its terror leaders, interrogators, and security as well as space to hold the captive IDF soldier.
Not only does the terrorist organization use the hospital for military purposes, but it often compelled hospital staff to aid in Hamas’ anti-Israel activities.
Ahmed Kahlot said he was recruited by Hamas in 2010 and added, “I know 16 employees in the hospital – doctor, nurse, paramedic, or clerks… who also have different positions in al-Qassam,” referring to the armed wing of Hamas.
Hamas even has its own ambulances with special colors and without license plates for transporting supplies, corpses, and hostages.
However, the terrorists refused to return the favor; according to Kahlot, “They didn’t assist us with transporting the injured.”
He continued, “I begged him to take someone to the Indonesian Hospital, take to Shifa [hospital], but he would refuse. His mission is more important.”
The hospital director echoes much of the criticism other Gazans have expressed of Hamas, “The leaders of Hamas are cowards. They left us in the field while they hid in secret places… They have destroyed us.”
In late November, The IDF detained the director of Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip as well as several doctors, eliciting strong condemnation from Hamas forces which use the medical center as a military base, both above and beneath the ground.
According to Kan News, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya was handed over to the IDF Intelligence Unit 504 and the Shabak for questioning.
A department chief at the hospital told the AFP news agency that “senior doctors” were also arrested.
Despite it being a war crime to embed military forces among civilians, Hamas denunciated the arrest as a move that was “nothing less than despicable, lacking any sense of humanity and morals. It is also a flagrant violation of international norms and charters, given obligations to ensure that medical personnel are never harmed, including in times of war.”