Hamas held at least three of the estimated 240 hostages it kidnapped on Oct. 7 at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the Israel Defense Forces revealed on Sunday night.
The military presented CCTV footage of the hostages being brought into the hospital, under which Hamas has built terror infrastructure.
IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said intelligence confirmed that Hamas terrorists had “quickly” murdered Cpl. Noa Marciano at Shifa, after she was taken there with non-life-threatening injuries sustained during her capture.
Marciano, a resident of Modi’in in central Israel, was abducted from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where she served as a lookout.
On Friday, the IDF said it had recovered her body from a building adjacent to Shifa. A day earlier, the military announced that soldiers had located and recovered the body of Yehudit Weiss, 65, from a nearby building.
In addition to Marciano, two hostages from Nepal and Thailand were hidden at Shifa Hospital in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre, said Hagari.
“The evidence I will share was sent by Israel through diplomatic channels to the countries of these civilians.... Hamas was hiding hostages and murdering hostages inside Shifa Hospital. Hamas was building tunnels under hospitals,” said Hagari.
Hagari proceeded to show footage of Hamas terrorists bringing two non-Israeli captives into the hospital by military jeep. “We have not yet located these hostages and have not rescued them,” he noted.
“The world must remember: Hamas is holding hostage the elderly, men, women, children and babies. The Israel Defense Forces has a moral obligation to bring everyone home. We will not rest until we do,” added Hagari.
In recent weeks, Israel has provided extensive evidence that Hamas uses hospitals, mosques, schools and other civilian sites in Gaza for its terror warfare against Israel, and that the terror group has a command center in the tunnel system underneath Shifa.
Last week, Israeli forces entered Shifa to conduct what the IDF said was a “targeted” operation against Hamas. Troops found weapons, military technology and intelligence information in the compound. Photos of hostages captured by Hamas during its Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel were also found.
Shifa Hospital, located in Gaza City’s North Rimal neighborhood and boasting 570 beds, is Gaza’s largest medical center. It was originally built by British authorities in 1946. In the 1980s, Israel renovated and expanded the hospital as part of an initiative to improve Gaza living conditions.
Most patients and staff of the hospital have been evacuated, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed in a recorded conversation with the medical center’s director on Saturday.
The hospital’s director told an Arab-speaking IDF officer that patients well enough to evacuate had already been transferred, and that most of the staff had left too.
On Sunday, the IDF and the Israel Security Agency announced that troops operating in Shifa Hospital discovered a 180-foot-long terror tunnel buried over 30 feet underground.
“The tunnel shaft was uncovered in the area of the hospital underneath a shed alongside a vehicle containing numerous weapons including RPGs, explosives and Kalashnikov rifles,” said the IDF.
According to the military, the entrance to the tunnel was outfitted with “various defense mechanisms” to prevent Israeli forces from entering, such as a blast door and a firing hole.
