The Hamas flag. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Ismail Haniyeh and other top Hamas leaders are hiding in bunkers located under Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, a Hamas operative revealed when interrogated by Israel’s Shin Bet security agency.

The information was provided by Mohammed Kadra, 28, from Khan Younis, a Hamas operative arrested during Operation Protective Edge. Kadra claimed that the location of the Hamas leadership’s hideout was “common knowledge” among Gazans, but that the public was barred from the area.

“During interrogations of Hamas operatives arrested during the Gaza operation, it has become disconcertingly clear that Hamas is using public buildings as bases of operations and that it is using civilians for cover, as it assumes Israel would refrain from targeting such places,” a Shin Bet report said.

Two prisoners—identified as Afif Jarah and Amad Jarah, from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia—revealed the location of a terror tunnel dug under the Israel-Gaza border. They said the tunnel led directly to a kindergarten in one of the communities adjacent to the border fence.