The IDF announced on Thursday that it has found data at Al-Shifa Hospital linked to the hostage Ori Magidish, the Israeli hostage recently rescued by the IDF.
On a laptop computer at Hamas’s Shifa command center, there were data and pictures of Magidish from before she was kidnapped.
Further, the IDF said there is extensive additional data that it still needs to parse from the technological items it found at the hospital and will continue to make announcements as it combs through the data.
No ‘smoking gun’ evidence yet
IDF Spokesperson R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari on Wednesday night presented Hamas weapons, military equipment, and intelligence technology which IDF forces found in more than 18 hours of searching Shifa Hospital since the early morning.
However, the IDF’s findings were not the same level of “smoking gun” as the vast explosives, advanced weapons, and hostage holding room that it found at Rantisi Hospital just a few days earlier.
In addition, no senior Hamas officials were found, and other than five Hamas terrorists killed as the IDF entered the hospital, there was no dramatic gunfight on Wednesday as has occurred at other symbols of Hamas’s rule.
Hagari noted that IDF intelligence indicated that after the October 7 slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, around 200 Hamas terrorists returned to Shifa.
However, when asked where they were now, Hagari was not able to provide an answer.
The IDF showed military equipment hidden behind an MRI machine, video cameras systematically covered up throughout the hospital, and large numbers of Hamas uniforms discarded, but did not find Hamas forces themselves or signs of hostages having been held there.
Hagari was asked if the IDF’s delay in taking Shifa had led to Hamas and possibly hostages being moved elsewhere, and responded, “we went at the right time for us…We evacuated many civilians,” noting that if more civilians had been at Shifa when the IDF finally went in, “this would have harmed our forces, their people,” and would have played into Hamas’s strategy since it wanted “the IDF harming patients in the hospital.”
Another IDF spokesperson on Thursday told BBC that they believed most Hamas forces had fled Shifa only a few days before the IDF entered.
Instead, he said the IDF’s operation was very precise and gradual, after special training for the troops of Division 36 who would enter the hospital to avoid civilian casualties despite the potential close fighting.
The IDF spokesperson also promised more findings of Hamas infrastructure, saying “this will take time. It is a complex area and there are still lots of civilians around. However long it will take, there is no doubt that Hamas used it as an infrastructure of terror.”
Foreign reports noted the IDF arresting two persons, and questioning a large number of young adolescent Palestinians at gunpoint, but without any sizable number of arrests.
IDF sources said that inspecting Shifa’s underground tunnel network, where many of the key findings against Hamas regarding Rantisi Hospital were made, has still not started in earnest, and will take significant amounts of time.
But generally speaking, the dramatic battle or findings expected at Shifa has not transpired by press time, though foreign media reported that many civilians were told earlier Wednesday to lie on the floor and stay away from the windows to avoid gunfire.
IDF to BBC: We have photos and videos of hostages taken during captivity
The IDF has uncovered laptops inside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza containing photos and videos of hostages taken during captivity, Israeli military spokesperson Lt.-Col. Jonathan Cornicus revealed to the BBC on Thursday.
“We uncovered a lot of computers and other equipment which could shed light on the current situation, hopefully regarding hostages as well,” Cornicus, who was accompanied by reporters entering the hospital, was quoted as saying.
This is a developing story.
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