The Israel Defense Forces has released CCTV videos and still images it says show Hamas fighters bringing hostages into the Al-Shifa Hospital on October 7.
IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari presented two short videos, along with several still images, which he said show Hamas fighters moving the hostages – one Nepali, one Thai – through the hospital, Gaza’s largest.
One of the CCTV videos shows a hostage being brought into the hospital through the main entrance, Hagari said. The hostage is being marched by force through the building.
Hagari, at a news conference Sunday, said the second CCTV video shows a second hostage – who has a bandaged hand and is clearly bleeding – being pushed on a gurney down a hallway and into a room.
Hagari did not spell out how the IDF had acquired the videos, although he did say Israeli intelligence officers were part of the operation inside the hospital to try to locate the hostages.
CNN cannot independently verify the content of the videos and the stills.
Opposing narratives: The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry responded to the IDF briefing by questioning the authenticity of the videos and stills — but it went on to say that, if true, the pictures showed that hospitals were providing medical care to anyone who needed it.
The IDF spokesman dismissed suggestions the hostages had been brought to the hospital because they were wounded, claiming one of the two hostages was not injured and did not need medical treatment. They had been brought to the hospital first, before being later moved to hiding spots, like nearby apartments, he said.
“If medical care had been given at the hospital, if the hostages had remained there, then the Red Cross would have come, and the people would have been released. None of these things happened,” he said.
In a statement issued Saturday before the release of the CCTV videos, Hamas said it had brought several hostages to hospitals for medical treatment after they were injured in Israeli airstrikes.
Hagari said the latest videos had been shared with diplomats of the hostages’ countries of origin, adding the IDF has not yet located the Nepali and Thai hostages in Gaza.
The Nepali Embassy in Israel and Nepal’s Foreign Ministry had confirmed with CNN before the publication of the video that one Nepali citizen remained missing after the October 7 attack and was believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas.
Ten Nepali citizens were killed and several others injured when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, Nepal’s ambassador to Israel told CNN after the attack.
More context: After raiding Al-Shifa Hospital last Wednesday, the IDF is under tremendous pressure to prove its long-standing assertion that Hamas uses Gaza’s largest medical center for combat and command purposes.
The military also released video Sunday from inside an exposed tunnel shaft at the Al-Shifa compound, showing an underground tunnel extending downward from the shaft opening.
Discussion about this post