WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will not share any Israeli intelligence or clarify its intelligence assessment that Hamas used Gaza’s Shifa Hospital as a command center and possibly a storage facility, White House spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.
Kirby said the United States is confident in the assessment its intelligence agencies will issue regarding Hamas activities at the facility in Gaza. He declined to provide details or provide details over the past few days.
Israeli forces entered Shifa Hospital on Wednesday after an air strike and ground operation targeting Hamas militants who Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people in a cross-border attack from Gaza on October 7.
In response to a question about whether the Israelis had exchanged any new intelligence information since the raid on the hospital began, Kirby said: “I will not talk about specific intelligence information that may pass between us.”
“This is really something for them to talk to, but as I said a few days ago, we are confident in our intelligence assessment of how Hamas used this hospital,” Kirby said at a news conference.
He added that Hamas fighters were taking shelter in the hospital and using it as a shield against military operations, putting patients and medical workers at risk.
“We have our own intelligence that convinces us that Hamas was using Al-Shifa as a command and control center, and most likely also as a storage facility.”
“We remain convinced of the validity of that intelligence.”
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Nandita Bose; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
