For the IDF, It’s Going to be a Long Slog Uncovering Tunnels Under Shifa Hospital

It is maddening to watch various news programs where the talking heads, interviewing IDF spokesmen, keep pressing them to explain why it is taking them so long to come up with convincing proof that Hamas used the Shifa hospital, and the network of tunnels underneath, where “Israelis say” Hamas hides its weapons, its command-and-control centers, its rocket launchers, and its operatives. But the convincing proof has already been given. The media just refuses to consider it sufficient. The dozens of AK-47s, the grenades, the piles of ammunition, the soldiers’ uniforms, and more uncovered every day, all testify to a Hamas presence inside the hospital. So do the recently revealed CCTV videos of Hamas soldiers bringing hostages into the hospital. So does the discovery, on November 19, of the entry, inside the hospital, to one of the largest Hamas tunnels so far uncovered anywhere in Gaza — it is 55 meters long. To those with anti-Israel animus, all this mounting evidence is treated as unconvincing; the tone seems to be “you’d better come up with a lot more than that, if you expect us to believe you.” It’s preposterous, but audiences, if told this kind of thing repeatedly by television journalists, start to believe it.

“IDF reveals: How intel led Israel to Hamas’s Shifa terror tunnel,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, November 19, 2023:

How the IDF entered Al-Shifa Hospital

The IDF entered the complex by blowing through a side wall, as opposed to the main entrance, near a booby-trapped pickup truck, to get to the Qatar facility as quickly as possible.

Eventually, a mix of drones and special units searching for the tunnel found a suspicious-looking small covered structure.

The IDF destroyed the structure with a D9 bulldozer, and only after destroying it, was the IDF able to detect the hidden top of the tunnel.

Once it found the tunnel, the IDF used various technologies to inspect the tunnel, finding it had a long spiral stairwell.

Eventually, the IDF arrived deep into the tunnel and was stopped by thick reinforced doors.

The IDF was working on a plan to breach the doors to continue to follow the tunnel, either to other tunnels or out into open areas.

IDF intelligence estimates that Hamas battalion commanders used such tunnels from Al-Shifa’s strategic location and large size, to easily maneuver between different neighborhoods and fronts without the IDF being able to track them from the air.

More tunnels likely to be found, Israeli intel indicates

Further, intelligence estimates indicate that other tunnels [under Shifa Hospital] are likely to be found shortly.

The IDF also gave a more exact distance of 50-100 meters from Al-Shifa for its location of the bodies of multiple Israelis taken by Hamas on October 7, whose remains have been brought back to Israel.

It was unclear how long the IDF would remain in control of Al-Shifa and would continue to uncover aspects of Hamas’s use of the area for terror purposes.

But if in the first 24 hours of the operation, the IDF was considering wrapping up the inspections within days, it seems now that the IDF will take much longer to continue to meticulously uncover all Hamas connections to the area.

It is unclear when and if the hospital will return to service any earlier than whenever the full-on stage of the war ends.

This search for tunnel entries inside Shifa Hospital, and the absolute necessity for the IDF to explore those tunnels, knowing full well that they have been extensively booby-trapped by Hamas, is turning out to be a much longer undertaking than the IDF had previously imagined. It’s going to be a long slog. The Western media needs to understand just what a complicated operation it will be, especially since the IDF is chary of losing men if it were to abandon its slow and methodical searching, and its intentional detonating of explosives, one by one, all through the tunnel networks. It may be a month, or maybe two or three. Don’t be impatient. The results, as the IDF knows, will be worth the wait.