Amid ongoing operation around Shifa, which Israeli and US officials say Hamas uses as a major HQ, army releases images of grenades, uniforms and equipment stored in facility

The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that its troops found military equipment including weapons in their raid on Gaza’s biggest hospital.

In an operation that began before dawn and continued for much of Wednesday, Israeli forces entered part of Shifa Hospital, with a journalist at the site telling AFP that the IDF had carried out room-by-room searches, after days of fighting on the outskirts of the facility with Hamas gunmen.

The IDF had encircled Shifa for days, and has said Hamas maintained a major operations command center beneath the facility, using the patients, staff, and civilians sheltering there to provide cover for its terrorists and gunmen. The US on Tuesday confirmed that Hamas and Islamic Jihad use Shifa and other Gaza hospitals, and tunnels underneath them, “to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages

2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that its troops found military equipment including weapons in their raid on Gaza’s biggest hospital.

In an operation that began before dawn and continued for much of Wednesday, Israeli forces entered part of Shifa Hospital, with a journalist at the site telling AFP that the IDF had carried out room-by-room searches, after days of fighting on the outskirts of the facility with Hamas gunmen.

The IDF had encircled Shifa for days, and has said Hamas maintained a major operations command center beneath the facility, using the patients, staff, and civilians sheltering there to provide cover for its terrorists and gunmen. The US on Tuesday confirmed that Hamas and Islamic Jihad use Shifa and other Gaza hospitals, and tunnels underneath them, “to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages.”

“In the hospital, we found weapons, intelligence materials, and military technology and equipment,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters.

“We also found an operational headquarters with comms equipment… belonging to Hamas” and “Hamas uniforms,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Wednesday in Tel Aviv with a US delegation headed by White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk and the State Department’s top diplomat for the Mideast Barbara Leaf, stressing that the IDF operation to “free Shifa Hospital from the control of the Hamas terror group” points to the Israeli determination and ability to completely root out Hamas from every corner of Gaza, the premier’s office said.

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