The director of a Gaza hospital admitted to Shin Bet interrogators that he was recruited by Hamas to help turn the Gaza Strip’s medical centers into military facilities, the Shin Bet announced on Tuesday.
In a video released by the Shin Bet, Ahmed Kahlot, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, told his interrogator, “I was recruited to Hamas in 2010 at the rank of lieutenant colonel. There are employees in the hospital who are military operatives of Ezz a-Din Al-Qassem: doctors, nurses, paramedics, clerks, and staff members.”
Kahlot added, “They hide in hospitals because they believe that a hospital is a safe place. They will not be harmed if they are inside a hospital.”
Israel security forces arrested Kahlot last Tuesday.
During the interrogation, Kahlot described how Hamas used hospitals and ambulances to hide terrorists, launch military activity, transport members of terror squads, and even deliver a kidnapped IDF soldier.
“Hamas has offices inside the hospitals. There are places for senior officials, they also brought a kidnapped soldier there. There is a designated place for investigations, internal security, and special security. They all have private phone lines inside the hospital,” Kahlot said.
Regarding the kidnapped soldier, Kahlot explained that “Hamas uses private ambulances. It has a different color, and no license plate. It was used to bring the kidnapped soldier and to transfer bodies. It comes and goes and does not take care of the wounded.”
Kahlot recalled, “Once I begged them to take a wounded man to the Indonesian Hospital, for treatment, yet they refused. Their mission is more important.”
He added, “The leaders of Hamas are cowards. They left us in the field while they hide in hiding places. They have destroyed us.”
