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Well as Brier mentioned Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan conriquez was at Al shifa hospital today and the IDF released a six-minute unedited video of kria showing what he says the Israeli military has discovered in this hospital here is a montage of that video edited for brevity security cameras have been
Obstructed all of the security cameras are covered there is a an AK-47 there are cartridges am ammo there are grenades in here of course uniform and all of that this was hidden very conveniently secretly behind the MRI machine when our troops open this uh closet here which is in the main part of
The clinic this is what they found these weapons have absolutely no business being inside a hospital alive grenade ammunition fighting vest with Insignia boots and of course uniforms and last but not least standard AK-47 tactical radio communications which we will analyze lots of discs which will be
Analyzed and a computer which at first glance already provides a lot of incriminating for more on the situation at gaza’s largest hospital I’m joined by Lieutenant Colonel mnan Sheffer in Tel Aviv he is a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces Lieutenant Colonel thanks for joining us today thanks for having
Me we’ve just shown some of the the footage of of your colleague Jonathan conriquez who was at alifa hospital today uh it shows taped over security cameras some bags of weapons some military gear a laptop radio some compact discs is this the extent of what was found at the hospital by the IDF
Today this is a substantial uh information that is being found inside and this is of course based on the intelligence that we had before and also that our counterparts including the US have affirmed independently um and we also know that for weeks we have been calling for civilians and patients to
Leave the hospital because it is being used by Hamas deliberately used by Hamas so we also know that they had the time to evacuate different equipment from there okay but uh when when um your your intelligence Services a few weeks ago released an animated video showing uh
Alifa being used as a command center they showed Subterranean tunnels and Subterranean uh uh command centers has anything like that been uncovered by your forces since they they took control of the the facility so first we are acting in a very specific part of the hospital with
Very trained force that is entered into a specific part of the hospital in order not to harm of course any civilians and patients that are in the area and to minimize any kind of friction that could be so we’re still operating in a small part of that hospital and we’re acting
Still there now looking for more terrorists and more activity that is done and that was done in that facility so it is the plan to to find this subt trining Command Center and these tunnels uh while the IDF is is in alifa right now will the operation be expanded to
See that because I think that’s what most people were expecting uh to be shown as proof that this was in fact a command center the mo of Hamas as a terrorist organization is to deliberately embed itself in the most popular ated areas and these are schools these are kindergartens and mosques and also
Hospitals like we saw in the an Hospital like we saw in the alut hospital and like we’re seeing also here in the shifa hospital and with our goal of this uh war is to dismantle Kamas we are going after them wherever they are um and this includes into the hospital where we know
That they have been acting and carrying out terrorist activity from within it right but but I guess I’m wondering if you say right now the oper operations in a very specific part of the Hospital the MRI facility I believe is what it is will it go into these other areas where
You’ve put out photos and and and reconstructions video reconstructions showing where the tunnels are and and the subterania command centers are is like will will we see actual evidence of that beyond the animated video we’re acting there operationally and we’re also collecting uh the evidence and once we have that we will
Share it with everyone to see like we have done we have a been very open of course to the press to join us coming into these areas that are under continuous fire and fighting um in order to show to the world really how Hamas operates and what they have done I
Remind everyone that Kamas is also done this by themselves on October 7th they came in with GoPros on themselves and wanted to air that to the world the massacre that They carried out um so we’re also uh going to expose how they are using these installations to carry out their terrorist activity I
Wonder if you can give us a a sense of the the fighting presence Hamas had at Al shifa I know the press release or the statements from the IDF says that you killed in your words a number of terrorists how many fighters were there how many are still there uh how many
Were killed can you give us some Precision on that so fighting in the vicinity of the hospital has been happening continuously and also yesterday before entering the hospital and it’s continuously happening also in the areas and I can’t say specifically how many terrorists were killed in in that engagement but throughout the whole
Fighting dozens of terrorists have been killed in that vicinity in that facility what about inside the facility itself was there any firefight inside the alifa compound no there wasn’t no fighting was inside uh the compound although we did find as mentioned military equipment including the AK-47s and uniform that
Were left behind so I don’t know how they left the area but we can guess okay so what is your expectation you say operations are continuing there I wonder how much longer do you think uh it will happen inside the hospital will the hospital be allowed to return operation
Or now that the IDF is in there do you intend to stay because if this is a command and control center I can’t imagine you would want to seed it back what are what are the immediate plans for this facility and your forces we have two very clear goals for our
Operations one is to dismantle Hamas and two to bring out to bring back the 239 hostages that have been held for 40 days in Gaza in regards to the hospital we’re doing everything in order to allow it and to uh give the patients the best care that we can we have brought today
Incubators uh to assist with that we have brought fuel uh to the hospital uh putting our own soldiers in Risk when bringing that fuel to the hospital we have allowed and called for the eastern part of the hospital to be used as a humanitarian exit uh continuously
Talking to the directors of the hospital and we’ve also invited any international organization and countries that wish to help with uh putting up hos field hospitals in the southern part of Gaza where for many many days we have called the civilians and the innocent people to
Move to that area so that they can get any treatment and any humanitarian assistance that they need but there are still military strikes in the southern part of Gaza right we spoke to a Palestinian Canadian woman whose family is in southern Gaza and and 14 of them
Were were killed by a missile strike in the last couple of days she’s now lost more than a 100 people in her extended family in Gaza and I know you say you’ve given them weeks to get out of Al shifa and other hospitals but there’s no Surplus Hospital capacity anywhere in
Gaza so so where do they go if if there’s still military strikes against the South and there’s no hospitals with space and and and supplies are scarce the south is the safer area because we have started from the main headquarters in the main area that Hamas
Operates which is the Gaza City and we know that Hamas as I mentioned before deliberately positions itself in the most populated areas and that is why Kamas also operates from the south they don’t limit themselves to the city of Gaza where military conflict happen they are shooting rockets at this moment we
Over 10,000 rockets that have been fired from the Gaza Strip including from the south part of the Gaza Strip at Israeli civilians and as I mentioned we are there of course to stop Hamas from continuous terrorist activity wherever that is yet we are limiting our uh operations in the southern area and
We’re trying to do everything that we can including today refueling unra cars and letting in over a 100 trucks to assist in the southern part um and that’s what we’ll continue doing um but going after Hamas wherever they are yeah I’m certainly not suggesting Hamas has stopped I know they continue
To Fire and their leadership has been on television saying they’ll do October 7th again and again and again so like certainly I’m not trying to suggest uh they are not uh uh persisting in their aggression uh but the the civilian toll is causing some consternation certainly here in Canada just yesterday prime
Minister Justin Trudeau urged Israel in his words to exercise maximum restraint he says the price of justice for October 7th can’t be the continued suffering of all Palestinians I I wonder what your response is to comments like that from Western countries like Canada I respect very much what uh prime
Minister Trudeau said and agree pretty much with everything he said and that’s what we’re doing we are trying to mitigate in the best ways the way to counter Hamas and uh stop them from ever being able to carry out another attack like October 7th and also we know how
Hamas operates they are using the civilians of Gaza as their human Shields and this is the cost of that kind of battle and sadly we don’t want to see any life lost not Israelis not Palestinians and not anyone else and that is why we’re fighting this fight in
Order to never see these kind of pictures and these kind of horic happen again I understand what what you’re saying there that Hamas is using human Shields and I think that’s widely accepted this is a tactic that they do use uh but Israel still makes the choice
Right and I know all the concepts of the laws of war and proportionality are all taken into consideration but for people who don’t live in that world they’re seeing a a civilian death toll that is rising and you’re seeing dead kids you’re seeing dead women and it’s just
They see a tragedy that’s spiraling and and and people are calling for a ceasefire uh increasingly I mean how do you feel the world is going to react to the mounting death toll as a result of of your military operations regardless of what Hamas is doing uh people want
This conflict to pause if not end entirely we want it also to end but we need it to end in a way that we can return to safety and know that this will never happen again and this is the challenge but that is why we are going
After it and we have to meet the goals that we have set in order to be sure that the massacre of October 7th will never happen again and we’re also sure that after we do this not only that Israelis will be safer but also Palestinians within the Gaza Strip will
Be safer without Hamas being there Lieutenant Colonel Aman sheffler with the Israel Defense Forces thank you so much for your time today sir thank you for having us Israeli military carried out a raid on gaza’s largest hospital overnight it claims to have found weapons and equipment that
Proves Hamas had was operating out of the comp complex but the attack is drawing condemnation Israel’s military incursion into alifa Hospital hosital in Gaza City is totally unacceptable hospitals are not Battlegrounds we’re extremely worried for the safety of staff and patients protecting them is Paramount meanwhile prime minister
Justin Trudeau is calling for Israel to exercise quote maximum restraint and today a new poll out of the US shows that American support for Israel’s military operation is eroding here to walk us through all of this is Aaron David Miller he is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace and previously served as a US state department official working on Middle East policy and the Arab Israel peace process Aaron David Miller it’s good to see you again David thanks for heaven there’s quite a bit to discuss there uh but let’s start with Israel’s move on Al shifa hospital what do you
Make of their decision to go in there and the evidence that they sort of put on the table for the world to see today I think it was it’s inevitable and inexorable result of the campaign or at least the war campaign objectives that the Israelis have I think October 7
Created a whole new frame of reference for the Israelis and by implication given the fact that the US has been quite supportive for the United States as well I think the indiscriminate nature the sadistic intimacy of the killing uh has created a a much broader margin in Israel’s own mind for what it
Has to do in Gaza and that includes the torturously complicated problem of Prosecuting a war in a densely populated uh area roughly the size twice the size of the District of Colombia 21,000 humans per square mile uh these hospitals MOS residential areas clearly have been areas where Hamas has embedded
Its military assets for any number of reasons and I think the uh the um what the Israelis have described as a precise attack and let’s be clear we’re really in the dark in terms terms of the granularity of of Israel’s war operations in Gaza they control the information
Space uh and I think that’s um part you know part of the problem in trying to evaluate exactly what it is they’re trying to do and what they’re claiming they stuff that they’ve released from their ontis children’s hospital clearly indicates that amas was using that as a facility to store military equipment and
Perhaps even to stash hostages and US intelligence uh over the last four 8 hours at least confirmed uh Israeli suspicions with regard to she hospital so again they’re losing the international battle but right now I think uh the one constituency that they’re that they have
To keep in their Corner uh is the United States and so far that’s been the case so so but on that point with what they showed us from El shiffa today and I know they say they’re only in one area of a vast complex but you know as as
They built the case to go in there in the weeks leading up to this they showed a computer generated map showing Subterranean tunnels and command centers and all of these things today we got about a dozen machine guns some grenades uh you know it I I don’t want to
Minimize what they found because clearly it means Hamas in some form was in there but do you think that was enough to justify what they’ve done here over the objections of the international uh community in a lot of ways it may not be and I think it’s really up to the
Israelis to demonstrate that in terms of proportionality um that in fact that was a compelling a Target and produced the evidence to suggest that uh that it was so it’s obviously caus some political Fallout in the United States and definitely here prime minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday he wanted Israel to exercise
Maximum restraint and he’s gotten some criticism for mentioning the killing of women and children and babies domestic criticism for that but also from prime minister Netanyahu the main opposition leader in Israel they’ve all criticized Justin Trudeau what do you make of that what did you make of the prime
Minister’s comments and the reaction from the Israeli political set I mean iselis have fallen back on their talking points which is essentially is that you want to assign responsibility for the civilian deaths when you talk to Hamas they’re the ones who are making our job excruciatingly difficult and painful and
Look I think the Israelis frankly uh have lost a good deal of the international legitimacy that is presumably critical to sustaining their military operations but as I mentioned earlier uh the one partner Ally um friend that state of Israel cannot afford to alienate is The Binding Ministry and so far the administration’s
Position has been uh we understand what the Israelis are trying to do in the wake of October 7 and frankly and this is a source of our reduced leverage I think we have no better answers we have no better answers for the Israelis on how you actually
Prosecute a war where in fact you’re dealing with densely populated civilian areas we have no better answers for the Israelis as to how to Surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza from the south where the Egyptians and Hamas are also part of the problem and frankly we have
No better answers uh on what uh to do about the proverbial day after I think American leverage would be much much more much tougher frankly and perhaps if we were willing to deploy it if we in fact had better answers to all of these questions the reality is we don’t the
International Community wants a ceasefire my only question would be what is the purpose of the ceasefire that answer is critically important to the logic of trying to uh move toward one what is the purpose of the ceas fire cessation of hostilities in place toward what end yes you can
Surge humanitarian assistance the Gaza but for how long and I I think really that until the United States separates from Israel on the broader objective of The Campaign which is and again what the metrics are for Victor here I don’t know how to ensure that whatever happens in
Gaza in the postconflict period you don’t have an organization like Kamas that is in a position to do what they did on October 7th that is driving isra Israel’s logic and I suspect it’s fairly compelling also to the administration regardless of its isolation Administration isolation in
The uh in the Arab world and in the region there’s going to be a deal on hostages and the deal is going to provide four five six seven days of quiet for the release of I don’t know how many uh probably women and children in exchange for uh women and uh young
Men adolesence I’m assuming uh that are imprisoned in Israeli jails the question then is what is the next step here right what exactly what is the end what what is the endgame here and that nobody has an answer for other than the Israelis and that’s obviously an answer that most
Of the International Community in the region doesn’t accept you rais a lot of very big questions and correctly point out that there are no good answers or no better answers to them and you you say that the Biden Administration support has held that is certainly true though
We are seeing some polling from the United States showing public opinion is maybe sliding over the way Israel is conducting this that the demands for a ceasefire are growing and then there’s the longer term challenge that you wrote about in in foreign policy saying that Biden now owns the Israel Palestine
Conflict what do you think this means uh for Joe Biden what must he do now in the time we have left you know if the president of the United States in the middle of a incredibly Dynamic situation basically says we cannot return to the status quo that existed before October 6 the
Galactic nature the sort of cosmic significance of that statement is extraordinary because if in fact there is no return to October 6 here’s what that means it means Hamas does not operate in Gaza as a military organization it means there needs to be a transitional mechanism of good governance to
Demonstrate real security and it means if the administration is interested in getting Palestinian involvement and they must who else is going to govern Gaza the International Community we’ll see how many takers there are for uh representatives of of Canada Britain France the United States to basically dispatch troops in what ultimately could
Be and I suspect will be over time Hamas resurgence there’s G to there’s going to be a counterinsurgency over time in Gaza is my is my read so um the president has taken that on and he’s also taken on the reality that if you want Palestinian incredible Palestinian actor involved in Gaza
You’re gonna have to tether Gaza Gaza first can’t be Gaza only right and with that means essentially is a serious credible effort to pursue a diplomatic end I mean it’s incredible that when I hear myself say it to the Israeli Palestinian conflict or at least set the stage for something that
Ordinary humans David like you and me right would regard as serious that’s what the president has apparently committed himself to and he’s going to be doing this in 2024 engaged in a very close election with the presumptive Republican nominee at a time when he’s managing uh Ukraine worried about AR Rising
China it it really is head exploding the degree to to what he has signed up for and it really requires a lot of imagination to believe that these two communities deeply traumatized uh both by the events of October 7 and by the Israeli war war campaigning daa right are going
To be able to produce the kind of leaders on each side that are will be required to make the historic decisions to end the conflict okay it’s pretty extraordinary Aaron David Miller uh senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace we always appreciate your time thanks for joining us today
David thanks for having me
The Israeli military released footage that claims to show Hamas weapons and equipment inside Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. IDF spokesperson Lt.-Col. Amnon Shefler discusses the findings of the raid and former U.S. state department official Aaron David Miller weighs in.
00:18 IDF footage of Al-Shifa hospital
01:17 IDF official Lt.-Col. Amnon Shefler
12:19 Analyst Aaron David Miller
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