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Hamas Denies Terrorist Presence at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital in English — but Celebrates It in Arabic
Israeli soldiers operate at the opening to a tunnel at Al Shifa Hospital compound in Gaza City, amid the ongoing ground operation of the Israeli army against Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, Nov. 22, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Videos taken by Palestinian terrorists and released in Arabic show themselves in civilian clothing barricading in and around Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City while firing guns and explosives at Israeli soldiers — a different story than the one that Hamas and its allies have told the world in English.
For the last two weeks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been operating in and around Al-Shifa, the largest medical facility in Gaza before the current war, after Palestinian terrorists regrouped there following Israel’s operation in the compound in November.
In the fall, Israel had provided weeks of warning prior to entering the complex. “They [the terrorists] left there because they knew we were coming,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. “And this time, we did something else.”
Israel has long said Al-Shifa was home to Hamas’ main base of operations, as well as cover for the terrorist group’s complex tunnel system and a hideout for fuel, water, food, and other supplies that were being withheld from Gaza’s civilian population. According to the US, Hamas used the medical facility to run military operations and even hold hostages seized by the terrorists during their Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
The IDF on Monday withdrew from Al-Shifa after a two-week raid, claiming Israeli soldiers killed more than 200 gunmen and captured about 900 suspects, of whom more than 500 were confirmed to be terrorist operatives.
Despite Article 19 of the Geneva Convention stating that “protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy,” some news reports framed Israel’s operation as a “massacre” that targeted doctors and patients rather than terrorists. Additionally, Hamas has told reporters in English language outlets that there were no militants in Al-Shifa.
However, footage taken by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade — all Palestinian terrorist organizations — indicate they were quite active in the areas in and around Al-Shifa. The Israel Files, a pro-Israel X/Twitter account, compiled a number of such videos.
Al Araby TV, for example, reported on “scenes from Al-Qassam [Hamas] fighters confronting the Israeli forces invading the vicinity of Al-Shifa Medical Complex.”
The videos show Palestinian terrorists in civilian buildings and wearing civilian clothing. John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, recently wrote that “not wearing uniforms and trying to blend in with civilians” constitutes a war crime.
مشاهد من تصدي مقاتلي القسام للقوات الإسرائيلية المتوغلة في محيط مجمع الشفاء الطبي بمدينة #غزة pic.twitter.com/FTENF9Ia3k
— التلفزيون العربي (@AlarabyTV) March 25, 2024
Observers have flagged the difference in Hamas’ messaging between English and Arabic to the media.
One X/Twitter user observed that these terrorist groups “openly [brag] about firing missiles and mortars at Al-Shifa over the last several weeks in Arabic, but then ‘reporters’ from the same outlets in English pretend the hundreds of terrorists were just invented and Israel was just assassinating random people.”
Islamic Jihad video portrays similar scenes. The Palestinian Information Center posted video with the caption: “The Al-Quds Brigades shows scenes of targeting a military vehicle and bombing Zionist enemy soldiers during the battles in the vicinity of Al-Shifa Complex.”
#شاهد.. سـ.ـرايا القدس تعرض مشاهد من استهداف آلية عسكرية وقصف جنود العـدو الصـ.ـهيوني خلال المعارك في محيط مجمع الشفـاء غرب غز.ة. pic.twitter.com/kbazaiD5Yb
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) April 1, 2024
Other video, released by Hamas, shows terrorists firing mortars at Israeli troops around Al-Shifa, with the following caption added by an X/Twitter user: “Qassam mortar barrages crush the Zionists’ pigs in the vicinity” of Al-Shifa.
زخات الهاون القسامية تدك خنازير الصهاينة في محيط #مستشفی_الشفاء
لا إسرائيل .. ولا 100 اسرائيل .. ولا 1000 اسرائيل يمكنها ان تقضي علي مقاومة نبتت من تراب الأرض الفلسطينية .#كتائب_القسام pic.twitter.com/WrPKQCNoyq
— JUBA (@jubaegyptian) March 26, 2024
Meanwhile, Hamas has openly acknowledged its presence at Al-Shifa — in Arabic.
“Since Monday dawn, we have been engaged in fierce clashes with enemy forces in Al-Shifa Hospital, and we have caused deaths and injuries among its ranks,” the terrorist group said in a statement last month.
In its latest raid on the medical complex, the IDF said some “very significant” Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders were captured. At least four Hamas leaders were killed — including the deputy commander of its Gaza City rocket unit and an operative who helped plan a terror attack that killed four Israelis.
Hamas commander Raad Thabet was also killed in the raid. Hagari described Thabet as one of the most senior Hamas military commanders who had been in close contact with the terrorist group’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar and military wing head Mohammed Deif.
The post Hamas Denies Terrorist Presence at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital in English — but Celebrates It in Arabic first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Military Expert: Doha Strike Was Backed by US and Qatar Coup, Will Bring Hostage Deal Closer

A damaged building, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders, according to an Israeli official, in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Israel’s unprecedented strike on Hamas leaders in Doha this week was not a rogue act of military aggression, but rather the outcome of quiet coordination between Qatar and the US that could bring a hostage deal closer, Israeli intelligence expert Eyal Pinko said on Wednesday.
The strike, which officials have said was planned months ago, came a day after 10 Israelis were killed by Hamas in Gaza and Jerusalem. Four were soldiers who died in an attack on an Israeli tank in northern Gaza. The separate shooting attack in Jerusalem, in which six Israelis were killed and several more wounded, was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” Pinko, a national security expert who served in Israeli intelligence for more than three decades, said in a press briefing.
Pinko contended that while Qatar publicly condemned the attacks, it also enabled them. “I am sure they were involved and the attack was coordinated with the [Qataris],” Pinko later told The Algemeiner.
The most recent round of negotiations to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal were nothing more than a “deception” by the US and Israel designed to gather Hamas leaders in one place “in order to set the timing to eliminate them,” he said.
Pinko said the strike should also be seen in light of US President Donald Trump’s impatience with the stalled hostage talks, arguing it showed Trump was on board with assassinations of Hamas leaders despite public declarations that he was “very unhappy” with the attack. He also pointed to Trump’s comments from last month, in which the US president predicted the Gaza conflict would reach a “conclusive ending” within two or three weeks.
Qatar, which has long hosted Hamas’s exiled leadership, benefits strategically from replacing the terrorist group’s leaders loyal to Iran with figures it can trust, Pinko maintained. Doha holds billions of dollars belonging to Hamas officials and has no interest in letting Ankara or Tehran displace it as the group’s patron. The timing of the attack is also significant, Pinko said, coming in the wake of Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear program over the summer. “Iran is in a very bad situation. Qatar can easily overcome Iran,” he said.
Pinko further argued that the strike may serve to bring forward the release of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza since Hamas itself was no longer a coherent negotiating partner. The terrorist group operating in Gaza had become fragmented, “divided into five families that are fighting each other” and sometimes giving the impression that “they hate each other more than they hate Israel,” Pinko said. Recent talks proved “there was no longer a decisionmaker in Hamas,” and this disarray had allowed Hamas leaders to drag out the process with unrealistic demands. Removing those figures, he argued, would leave room for Qatar to install leaders who could cut a deal. “This will make the negotiation process much faster,” he said.
Pinko’s assessment stands in stark contrast to the fears of some of the families of the remaining 48 hostages held in Gaza, who said in a statement they had “grave fear” the Doha strike could sabotage the chances of bringing their loved ones home.
He placed the operation in a wider context, linking it to the revival of the Abraham Accords and US efforts to build a trade corridor from India through the Gulf to Israel and Europe as a counterweight to China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative, ending with Gaza as a key trade hub. “Trump is very serious in making the northern part of the Gaza Strip as [having] US autonomy. That will be the end of the American belt and road initiative to compete with the Chinese,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called on Qatar, which “gives safe haven [and] harbors terrorists,” to expel them or bring them to justice, adding that if they don’t, “we will.”
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for his part said his country would retaliate over the strike, and accused Netanyahu of “wasting” Qatar’s time in negotiations and “leading the Middle East to chaos.”
Pinko called out Doha for its “duplicity” in pretending to be a peacemaker on the one hand, while “fueling Hamas and hatred” in the US and Europe, on the other.
“They are against Israel in their DNA. They don’t want Israel to exist,” he said. “So Gaza and Hamas are a very important asset for them.”
Some critics have denounced the Doha strike as a violation of international law, but international law experts note that Article 51 of the UN Charter recognizes a state’s inherent right to self-defense and that this right is not confined by geography if attacks are directed from outside its borders. The so-called “unwilling or unable” doctrine holds that if a host country does not act against militants on its soil, the victim state may use proportionate force.
The US relied on this doctrine when it killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in a 2011 operation that was widely hailed by Western governments and the UN, whose then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said at the time that he was “very much relieved by news that justice has been done” and called it “a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism.”
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Germany Presses Main Mosque Network to Distance Itself From Erdogan Ally Over Antisemitism

Ali Erbas, president of Diyanet, speaks at a press conference following an August 2025 gathering in Istanbul, where 150 Islamic scholars called for armed resistance and a boycott against Israel. Photo: Screenshot
Amid a rising wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes, the German government is pressing the country’s main mosque association over its close ties to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging it to publicly distance itself from his antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric.
According to local reports, German authorities have told the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) — the country’s largest mosque network — to formally break with Erdogan’s hateful statements or risk losing government support and cooperation.
“We expect the federal government’s cooperation partners to clearly distance themselves from organizations and individuals who spread antisemitic messages or promote Islamist agendas,” a spokesperson for Germany’s Federal Ministry of Interior said in a statement to German media.
For years, the German government has supported DITIB in training imams, as well as helping to foster community programs and religious initiatives.
In 2023, then-Interior Minister Nancy Faeser signed an agreement with the Turkish government’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) and DITIB for a new imam training program.
By sending imams from Turkey and paying their salaries, the Diyanet oversees DITIB and its hundreds of communities across Germany, shaping the ideological direction of more than 900 mosques and influencing the training of their imams.
Under a new program, however, the Diyanet no longer sends imams directly from Turkey. Instead, Turkish students are trained in Germany in cooperation with the German Islam Conference (IKD).
Since March 1 of this year, the Interior Ministry has designated €465,000 in support for the program, according to the German newspaper Die Welt.
With this new agreement, imams live permanently in German communities and have no formal ties to the Turkish government. Still, experts doubt that this alone would curb the Diyanet’s political influence.
In the past, DITIB has faced multiple controversies, with some members making antisemitic remarks and spreading hateful messages.
“The continuation of measures adopted for this purpose, such as the training initiative, will largely depend on DITIB’s conduct and the success of the process,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior said in a statement.
The German government’s latest warning came after a conference in Istanbul last month, where 150 Islamic scholars called for armed resistance against Israel, a boycott against the country, and “global jihad.”
Among those attending was Ali Erbas, president of Diyanet, with whom the German government signed the new agreement in 2023.
Erbas has repeatedly made public antisemitic statements, defended the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct.7, 2023, and called for the mobilization of “all forms of jihad.”
“The Zionist regime is committing outright genocide in Gaza. We believe it is haram, or forbidden, to remain silent in the face of oppression. Therefore, everyone can take action. The boycott of Zionist occupiers’ goods must continue,” Erbas reportedly said during the conference.
“We firmly affirm that the Palestinian people have all legitimate forms of resistance against the Zionist occupation, including armed resistance. We also consider it necessary to mobilize the Ummah [Islamic community] for all forms of jihad in the way of Allah,” he continued.
“Bir avuç azgın topluluk, tüm dünyayı felakete sürüklüyor”https://t.co/ieip8gNvkt pic.twitter.com/jZn5Tgc1Ah
— Diyanet (@diyanetbasin) August 29, 2025
The German government strongly condemned Erbas’s comments, questioning DITIB’s relationship with a public figure whose statements and antisemitic ideology contradict their cooperation agreement.
“These events underscore, once again, the problematic structural and personal links between DITIB and the Turkish religious authority,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior said in a statement.
“Cooperation with DITIB requires a clear commitment to the values of the Basic Law, to international understanding, to Israel’s right to exist, and to a firm opposition to both Islamism and antisemitism,” the statement read.
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EU Targets Israel With Sanctions and Partial Trade Suspension, Von der Leyen Calls for Ceasefire Amid Gaza War

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers the State of the European Union address to the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Sept. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
The executive body of the European Union will propose sanctions against certain Israeli ministers and partially suspend the EU’s association agreement with Israel, in one of its latest efforts to pressure Jerusalem over the war in Gaza.
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled new measures targeting the 25-year-old pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with Israel, in one of the latest attempts to curb the Jewish state’s defensive campaign against Hamas.
“What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience of the world,” von der Leyen said in a State of the Union speech to the European Parliament in France.
“People killed while begging for food. Mothers holding lifeless babies,” she continued. “Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war. For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity. This must stop.”
This latest move is part of an increasingly hostile campaign by some European countries against the Jewish state, building on previous efforts to undermine Israel internationally.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denounced von der Leyen’s comments as “regrettable,” adding that some of her remarks were “tainted by echoing the false propaganda of Hamas and its partners.”
“Israel, the world’s only Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East, is fighting a war of existence against extremist enemies working to eliminate it. The international community must back Israel in this struggle,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“Once again, Europe conveys the wrong message that strengthens Hamas and the radical axis in the Middle East,” he continued. “Anyone who seeks an end to the war knows very well how to end it: the release of the hostages, the disarmament of Hamas, a new future for Gaza.”
Saar added, “Hurting Israel will not bring this about; on the contrary, it entrenches Hamas and Israel’s enemies in their refusal.”
The President of the European Commission’s comments this morning are regrettable. Some of them are also tainted by echoing the false propaganda of Hamas and its partners.
Once again, Europe conveys the wrong message that strengthens Hamas and the radical axis in the Middle East.…— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) September 10, 2025
Von der Leyen’s announcement came just a day after Jerusalem carried out strikes against Hamas’s political leadership in Qatar, which has supported the Palestinian terrorist group for years.
In her speech, von der Leyen denounced Israel’s actions, accusing the country of causing starvation in the war-torn enclave of Gaza and undermining ceasefire negotiations.
She also condemned the expansion of settlements in parts of the West Bank and denounced comments from some government ministers that she said incite violence.
“All of this points to a clear attempt to undermine the two-state solution, to undermine the vision of a viable Palestinian state. And we must not let this happen,” von der Leyen said.
Israel has vehemently denied any accusations of causing starvation in Gaza, noting that it has provided and facilitated significant humanitarian aid into the enclave throughout much of the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians. According to UN data, the vast majority of humanitarian aid entering Gaza is intercepted before reaching its intended civilian recipients.
Jerusalem has also argued it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, despite Hamas’s widely acknowledged military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Under the new proposed measures, the EU would partially suspend its trade pact with Israel, removing preferential treatment for Israeli goods that make up nearly a third of the country’s total international trade.
Von der Leyen also announced that the EU will suspend its bilateral support for Israel, while maintaining engagement with Israeli civil society and Yad Vashem, the country’s main Holocaust memorial center.
In addition, the European Commission “will propose sanctions on the extremist ministers and on violent settlers” and plans to set up a “Palestine donor group” next month, with a dedicated mechanism to support Gaza’s reconstruction following the war.
At the end of her speech, von der Leyen called for the release of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas, the “unrestrained” entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and “an immediate ceasefire.”
“There can never be any place for Hamas, neither now nor in future because they are terrorists who want to destroy Israel,” the European Commission head said.
“They are also inflicting terror on their own people, keeping their future hostage.”