hamas salaries paid at Shifa hospital

Hamas are using Gaza's Shifa Hospital as a meeting place and even distributed salaries to their operatives there over the weekend, Public Security Minister and former Shin Bet secret service head Avi Dichter said Monday morning.

Speaking on Army Radio, Dichter noted that "On Saturday, January 10, which is the day salaries are distributed in Gaza, several Hamas commanders who cannot come out of their hiding places were given their salaries at their hiding places. But those commanders who can move around Gaza made their way to Shifa Hospital to receive their salaries."

Regarding Israeli intelligence reports that the Hamas leadership has taken refuge in Gaza's Shifa Hospital, Dichter said that the "Shifa Hospital has long ago ceased to be just a hospital, just as the UNRWA humanitarian and health services in Gaza long ago ceased to be just humanitarian services providing food and medical services."

"UN schools in Gaza long ago stopped being just schools," the minister said. "All these services and places are refuge for Hamas terrorists and commanders."

The former Shin Bet chief said that is was common knowledge in Gaza that Hamas hold meeting in the hospital. "Shifa Hospital, which is situated in the more wealthy western part of Gaza City, is a very big hospital, but you can hear from the Palestinians who visit there, it is somewhat of an open secret, that Hamas commanders walk around the hospital, in some instances wearing doctors' robes," he said. "In some cases the Hamas commanders kick medical teams out of rooms so that they can hold meetings."

Asked why Israel was not acting against Shifa Hospital, Dichter answered that an attack on a hospital could not be carried out "for obvious reasons."

Prevention and treatment? Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin says some of the doctors in Gaza's hospitals could actually could be Hamas men in disguise.

"Shifa is in the middle of a very crowded area in Gaza and you would have to get through half-a-million Gazans to get to the hospital and arrest Hamas people there. So that's not doable. Striking the hospital is out of the question for obvious reasons. So in this case we have to just bite our lips," he said.

Dichter went on to say that Israel's goal in the operation in Gaza against Hamas was to stop the smuggling of arms into Gaza. "This means getting Egypt to do what it should have been doing for the past eight years, and didn't do," he said.

"We are now two weeks into massive firing of weapons into Israel that were "not found inside the Gaza Strip but were smuggled into there. We're talking about Grad rockets, regardless of whether they were manufactured in China or Iran."

Dichter was optimistic that this goal would be achieved, saying that he thought "The Egyptians will not be able to evade responsibility. I believe that American and European pressure will get the Egyptians to do what they have to do."

"I have no doubt that if the tables were turned, and a huge amount of weaponry whose origin was in Israel was being smuggled into Egypt from Gaza, Egypt would not be sitting quietly."