From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
IDF names additional Hamas, PIJ commanders captured by troops in Shifa raid
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The IDF names additional senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders captured by troops at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.
During the two-week-long operation at Shifa, the IDF says soldiers managed to detain more than 500 members of terror groups, including top operatives.
The IDF says that among those captured is Ashraf Ibrahim Samur, the deputy head of the information department in Hamas’s intelligence division.
In an interrogation video released by the IDF, Samur is seen describing to Shin Bet interrogators that several Hamas units, including its intelligence division, operated out of Shifa.
Samur says that Hamas began to regroup at the hospital two days after the IDF initially left it last year. If accurate, that means that the terror group entered the hospital at the start of the seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas in late November.
Additional Hamas commanders captured at Shifa are named by the IDF as Hashem Sarsour, head of the emergency committees in East Gaza City; Mehdi Abu Hassanin, head of internal security in the Gaza City; Ibrahim Tamraz, head of police operations in Gaza City; Mahmoud Ajour, head of “policy decisions committee”; Asama al-Tata; head of the Shejaiya Brigade’s rocket unit; and Diab al-Tahar, a senior member of the emergency committees in south Gaza.
The IDF also names four more Islamic Jihad terror operatives captured at Shifa: Hassan Aki, the deputy commander of a special rocket unit; Bakr Jaabari, an assistant to the former head of Islamic Jihad’s northern Gaza region; Muhammad Mali, responsible for finances for Islamic Jihad; and Musa al-Imawi, the deputy commander of the group’s Sabrah district.
???? Senior Hamas military intelligence officer during an ISA interrogation:
"Units of the military intelligence operated from Shifa Hospital. The Interior Ministry, the Emergency Committees and the government of Hamas also worked from there. It's a safe place.”
Watch the full… pic.twitter.com/jM8gfWUyH1
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) April 3, 2024
