The other day, an Israeli airstrike hit a single ambulance in a convoy of ambulances waiting just outside the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Hamas immediately claimed, and the media reported as true, that Israel had hit not a single ambulance, but a “convoy” of them,and that the only people being transported by those ambulances were wounded Gazan civilians. In fact, as the IDF said, those inside that single ambulance the IDF targetted had been wounded Hamas fighters, trying to sneak out of Gaza for treatment in Egypt. Now the Biden administration has come out in support of the IDF’s claim. More on this story can be found here: “Hamas tried to send fighters to Egypt in ambulances for wounded Gazans — US official,” by Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, November 4, 2023:
Hamas tried to sneak its fighters out of the Gaza Strip in ambulances that evacuated dozens of wounded Palestinians to Egypt earlier this week, a senior Biden administration official said Friday.
Hamas had compiled a list of the seriously wounded that it wanted to evacuate from Gaza for treatment in Egypt, along with thousands of foreign nationals looking to flee the enclave.
The list was then vetted by Egypt and the United States, which found that a third of the names on it were of Hamas fighters, the administration official said, adding that the list was rejected and none of the 76 wounded Palestinians who were ultimately evacuated in ambulances out of Gaza were members of the terror group.
Meanwhile, two senior Israeli officials told The Times of Israel that Israeli inspectors earlier this week uncovered, hidden in an aid truck, several oxygen concentrators meant to aerate the tunnels operated by terror organizations in Gaza.
These weren’t for use in the hospitals, but below them. That’s why they were smuggled among boxes of cookies,” one of the senior Israeli officials said, adding that the entire truck in which the oxygen concentrators were found was barred from entering Gaza.
Neither official provided a photo of the oxygen concentrators in question and they did not disclose which organization was responsible for sending the truck.
The attempt by Hamas to smuggle in oxygen concentrators to aerate the tunnels where so many of its fighters lived was foiled on this occasion, but it offers more evidence that Hamas will use the traffic now allowed both into and out of Gaza to further its war aims. In vehicles — ambulances — going out of Gaza, Hamas will continue to try to send out its wounded fighters, but from now on will be unlikely to list their real names, so that the IDF and the Americans will not be able to identify them as Hamas members. And in the trucks bringing humanitarian aid into Gaza, Hamas will continue to try to smuggle in such items as the oxygen concentrators, vital for Hamas if it is to continue having its fighters hide in the tunnels. This is why Israel insists on inspecting every ambulance that leaves, and every truck with “humanitarian aid” that enters, the Strip.
Since Egypt opened its Rafah crossing into Gaza 11 days ago, several hundred trucks filled with humanitarian aid have been able to enter Gaza following inspections by both Egyptian and Israeli authorities.
The trucks first enter Egypt where they undergo an initial round of inspections. They then are driven into Israel through the Nitzana crossing where they are inspected by Israel’s COGAT military liaison before being sent back to Egypt and driven into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, a second Israeli official told The Times of Israel, saying the format was agreed upon after extensive talks between Israel, Egypt and the United States.
Israel has thus far rejected growing calls to allow in fuel, expressing concerns that Hamas will divert it to power its tunnels. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said Thursday that Israel would allow fuel to enter Gaza via the Rafah crossing should it determine that hospitals have run out of fuel.
The Israelis know that Hamas is hoarding 500,000 liters of fuel in tanks in southern Gaza, and another 500,000 to one million liters in Gaza City, as well as unknown quantities elsewhere. There is no shortage of fuel in Gaza; the putative “shortage” is caused by Hamas holding onto it for use by its own operatives in war-making. Hamas does allow out small amounts of fuel to the hospitals, just enough to keep them going. Hamas wants those hospitals, under which the terror group has dug its tunnels, to continue in operation, its patients and medical personnel both serving as human shields to constrain attacks by the IDF on the tunnels underneath. There is no way to ensure that new shipments of diesel fuel into Gaza will reach the intended recipients — the people of Gaza — instead of yet again being seized for its own purposes by Hamas.
Shortly after Halevi’s comments, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a terse statement noting only that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has not approved the entry of fuel into Gaza.”
So this is what we know:
Hamas has been doing just what the IDF claimed, and the Americans have now confirmed (on the basis of their own intelligence, or on that furnished by the Israelis) that Hamas had tried to smuggle its wounded Hamas fighters out of Gaza in that ambulance that formed part of a convoy carrying wounded civilians.
And we also know, which the Americans have not yet confirmed, about the IDF claims that Hamas has been trying to smuggle into Gaza, in shipments of “humanitarian aid,” items critical to its fighters being able to survive in the tunnel network, such as oxygen concentrators for use in aerating their tunnels.
Every Egypt-bound ambulance from Gaza needs to be thoroughly checked for Hamas members, and every truck going into Gaza must be checked for supplies that will help Hamas’ war effort. It’s a tall order for the Israelis. But they have no choice.
somehistory says
What else should one expect from an organization supported by a book of demon filth, filled with lies and demanding lies from the adherents of the teachings of evil in the book?
mozlums may be ignorant, feculent slugs, but they are crafty and sneaky, just like their demon father.
marc says
I saw some of the footage they shared, the bodies look like they were just removed from the morgue, ashen and bloated. I assume the video I saw was a Pallywood production after they removed the bodies of Hamas. Poor donkey though, he didn’t deserve that.
somehistory says
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-u-s-is-going-to-have-to-say-it-more-forcefully-david-rothkopf-following-netanyahu-s-rejection-of-fighting-pause/vi-AA1jqK56?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=307445a33638451ea22939f70d600a8e&ei=61
Kesselman says
Nothing is surprising, the Hamas scum behaves in the way expected. To think otherwise about the terrorists one has to be a willing idiot. And there’s not a shortage of them.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
All this “humanitarian” talk about Gaza needs to be ended, & countries like Japan, India & others who are providing it need to just stop!