The Israeli military on Sunday said it had uncovered a tunnel under Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital that stretched 55-metres beneath the war-torn complex where troops have been conducting a major operation. "IDF troops exposed a 55-meter-long terror tunnel 10 metres deep underneath the Shifa hospital complex," which ran under the hospital and ended at a blast door, an army statement said.
However, Mounir El Barsh, the Gaza health ministry director, told Al Jazeera television that the Israeli statement was a "pure lie". "They have been at the hospital for eight days ... and yet they haven't found anything," he said.
Israel also stepped up its accusations against Hamas and claimed that one of its soldiers was killed by Hamas inside Al-Shifa and that it had taken two foreign hostages, a Nepalese and a Thai, from its October 7 incursion, to the hospital, Reuters reported.
19-year-old Noa Marciano, whose body was recovered near Shifa last week, "was taken by Hamas terrorists inside the walls of Shifa hospital. There, she was murdered by a Hamas terrorist," Israel army's chief spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. Hamas had said that she died in an Israeli air strike and issued a video that appeared to show her corpse, unmarked except for a head wound.