New evidence links Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital to hostages and massacre
Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza uncovered evidence tying the Indonesian Hospital to Hamas and its October 7 attacks, the Israel Defence Forces announced on Monday night.
The Indonesian Hospital, in the northern Gaza area of Beit Lahiya on Dec. 25, 2023. Screenshot via IDF Spokesperson
The military released video footage from the hospital complex, located in Beit Lahia, near Gaza’s northern border with Israel.
In the hospital’s inner compound, a Toyota Corolla vehicle with an Israeli license plate was found that belonged to the family of the late Samer Talalka. Talalka was one of three hostages mistakenly killed by soldiers on December 15.
The vehicle also contained bloodstains which were identified as belonging to another hostage. Also found in the vehicle were the remnants of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Also in the inner compound was a white Toyota truck of the same type used by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre. Additional were found inside the vehicle.
“The finding of the vehicle directly links the hospital to the brutal events of October 7th,” the IDF said.
“It is one of the hospitals that the Hamas terrorist organization uses in order to hide behind sick civilians, and from which it operates terrorist infrastructure. The Indonesian Hospital serves as a meeting place to conduct fighting and a base for senior officials and operatives of the Hamas terrorist organization. The hospital has extensive terrorist infrastructure and near it there are tunnel shafts leading to a tunnel route in the hospital area,” the IDF added.
According to the IDF, the Hospital, which was built in 2015 through donations from Indonesia, “is the strategic underground center of Hamas’ Jabaliya Battalion. During the war, armed Nukhba operatives were sighted in the hospital. They used it as a gathering point before leaving to carry out their activities.”
Since the war, Israel has uncovered extensive use of Gaza’s hospitals and clinics by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.
Ahmed Kahlot, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, confirmed to Israeli interrogators that he and other staff were Hamas operatives.
During the interrogation, Kahlot described how Hamas used hospitals and ambulances to hide operatives, launch military activity, transport members of terror squads and even a deliver a kidnapped Israeli soldier.
Other Gazans have told Israeli interrogators deeply embedded themselves in the Palestinian Red Crescent Society to use hospitals as a base for attacks.
As reported by the Tazpit Press Service, Hamas makes extensive use of the Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical centre. Hamas launched rockets from its compound, hid hostages in the bowels of the building, tortured collaborators, and dug tunnels connecting Shifa to nearby sites. Israel also released a recording of a phone call confirming that Hamas also stores at least a half-million litres of fuel underneath the compound.
At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. The number of men, women, children, soldiers and foreigners held captive in Gaza by Hamas is now believed to be 129. Other people remain unaccounted for as Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and search for human remains.
