Ehud Barak says Bunkers were built to provide space for the hospital

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said that the bunkers beneath Al-Shifa Hospital, have been known to exist for many decades. He confirmed the information for CNN for a second time claiming they were built to provide more operational space for the hospital. However, when asked to justify the claims that it is a major command centre of Hamas, he responded ‘maybe not major’ he, nonetheless, ‘couldn’t get into intelligence’ saying that Hamas probably had the time to clean the space up.

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Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has confirmed to CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour that the bunkers under Al-Shifa Hospital were “originally built by Israeli constructors” when the settler-colonial state maintained its physical occupation of the Gaza Strip.

“Decades ago, we were running the place, so we held them for decades, many decades ago, maybe five or four decades ago, that we helped them to build these bunkers in order to enable more space for the operation of the hospital within the very limited size of this compound,” explained Barak.

Since storming Al-Shifa several days ago, it has become clear that the occupation army lied with its claims that tunnels under the hospital were a military headquarters built by Hamas. The army has failed to provide any evidence for its allegations. The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Monday that its staff had only ever seen civilians in the medical facility.

The Israeli occupation army has forced patients and medical teams to leave the hospital despite the difficult conditions. Those forced out include 28 premature babies who were evacuated from Al-Shifa to Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.

READ: Premature Gaza babies evacuated to Egypt

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