Hamas commander’s diary found in Gaza details use of schools, hospitals, UNRWA equipment – report

The IDF has uncovered a Hamas platoon commander’s diary in Beit Hanoun that sheds light on the terror group’s routine use of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure for military activity, Channel 12 reports, without citing a source.

According to the report, the diary – written by Khaled Abu Akram, a Hamas platoon commander – was found in August in the northern Gaza town. Its entries detail how Hamas embeds its operations in schools, hospitals and UN facilities, and how its fighters repurpose unexploded IDF munitions.

In one entry from May 30, 2024, Abu Akram reportedly described preparing an ambush inside a Beit Hanoun school: “I went with Abu Salah [a company commander in another platoon]… to prepare a new ambush at the Hani Naim School, after the shafts located there were bombed and the previous ambush was destroyed.”

Three months later, he wrote of burying an “F-16 missile and charges” in multiple locations and noted the removal of “batteries from the [UNRWA] agency clinic” as well as taking “the solar panels” and preparing a water well.

In another entry from July, he described how an unexploded missile fired from an F-16 warplane had been hidden inside a school as IDF troops advanced: “The [IDF] bulldozer began to destroy the school building… An F-16 missile was buried in the school, but the cameras were broken.”

The diary also details Hamas’s use of hospital infrastructure.

In a November entry, Abu Akram wrote: “We laid an electrical cable from the hospital… to our house – to operate our well.” He added that when the power supply proved too weak, the operatives instead used the hospital’s electricity and later “brought a motor… and the water rose properly.”

Channel 12 says the diary provides rare, firsthand documentation of how Hamas exploits civilian and humanitarian facilities across Gaza to sustain its military capabilities – a claim the IDF has repeatedly made in defense of its widespread bombardment of the Strip throughout more than two years of war.