In interrogation, Islamic Jihad spokesman admits group’s rocket struck Gaza hospital
Tarek Abu Shaluf, one of 500 terror operatives captured by IDF at Shifa Hospital, details how group lied about al-Ahli blast, use of Strip’s medical centers
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Israel Defense Forces on Monday released footage from the interrogation of the spokesman for the political wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, in which he admitted that the terror group tried to hide the fact that one of its rockets struck Al-Ahli Arab Hospital at the beginning of the war, as well as saying that terror operatives use “all hospitals in the Gaza Strip.”
Tarek Abu Shaluf was among 500 terror operatives captured by the IDF at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital last month, the military said.
The IDF said Abu Shaluf “advanced acts of incitement and propaganda from within Shifa Hospital, and testified to the use of the compound and medical equipment for terror purposes.”
In the video, Abu Shaluf is seen telling an interrogator of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 that the blast at Al-Ahli hospital (which he referred to by the local name of “Mamadani Hospital”) was “a local rocket. We said it was Israeli.”
Israel accused Islamic Jihad of firing the rocket that fell short and hit the hospital in late October, reportedly killing dozens of people, hours after Hamas officials falsely blamed an Israeli strike, a claim that international media outlets widely reported.
“To erase this story, the movement (Islamic Jihad) made some moves — it made up a story that the rocket belonged to the occupation (Israel) and that the target was the [hospital] building,” Abu Shalaf said.
Asked by the interrogator which hospitals Islamic Jihad and Hamas use in Gaza, Abu Shalaf said, “All of the hospitals.”
“Because there is internet there 24 hours, there is electricity 24 hours,” he said, explaining that when terror groups use the hospitals, they occupy a room or two in each ward, without needing to close an entire department.
Abu Shaluf in his interrogation also detailed the use of ambulances by terror operatives at the hospitals.
International law stipulates that while a medical facility is a protected site in conflict, it loses that status if it is used for military activity.
Israel has offered evidence that Hamas and Islamic Jihad use such facilities as cover for terror purposes and says the groups plunder humanitarian aid to take supplies for its fighters, depriving the civilian population.
Despite overwhelming evidence, Hamas has denied operating from Shifa and other health facilities.
During the two-week-long raid at Shifa in March, the IDF said troops captured some 900 suspects, of whom more than 500 were confirmed to be terror operatives, and killed more than 200 gunmen.
Among those killed and detained were top commanders in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Valuable intelligence was also seized, the IDF said.
