Israeli forces kill hospital ‘hostage taker’
ISRAELI forces last night claimed to have killed a Hamas commander who held 1,000 Gazans “hostage” in a hospital as human shields.
The Israel Defence Forces said Ahmed Siam, a leader in Hamas’s al-Furqan Brigade, had blocked civilians from evacuating the al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City earlier this week.
The IDF said that Siam and several other terrorists were killed while hiding out at a school building in Gaza, following a joint operation with Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency.
“Ahmed Siam demonstrates once again that Hamas uses the civilians of the Gaza Strip as human shields for terror purposes,” the IDF added.
The operation came as clashes intensified around the largest hospital in Gaza, al-Shifa, which Israeli forces claim houses a subterranean Hamas command and control centre.
Fighting was said to be taking place less than 500 metres away, while the hospital said it had run out of fuel and electricity.
Officials from the Hamas-run health ministry and hospital medics claimed Israeli snipers had their sights trained on the buildings and were shooting at anyone who came or went.
They said the power shortages had caused at least two deaths – including that of a newborn baby – and that nearly 40 more infants were at risk.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “shocked and appalled by the images & reports coming from al-Shifa hospital”.
Israel accuses Hamas fighters of “cynically” using Gazan hospitals full of civilians as citadels, and says Hamas leaders use ambulances as cover to travel in.
Yesterday, IDF commanders said that at one point three days ago, they had deliberately allowed Hamas fighters to join an evacuation of al-Rantisi to reduce the risk of civilian casualties.
“We opened the corridor and let the Hamas terrorists leave with the civilians because we didn’t want to risk the civilians in that whole situation,” said an IDF spokesman. “It worked for them, we’ll get to them later.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s Foreign Ministry revised the death toll from last month’s Hamas attacks from 1,400 to around 1,200, according to the