|
Listen now
|
Hidden deep below the headquarters of the United Nations’ aid agency (UNRWA) for Palestinians here is a Hamas complex with rows of computer servers that Israel’s armed forces say served as an important communications center and intelligence hub for the Islamist militant group.
Part of a warren of tunnels and subterranean chambers carved from the Gaza Strip’s sandy soil, the compound below the United Nations Relief and Works Agency buildings in Gaza City appears to have run on electricity drawn from the U.N.’s power supply, Israeli officials said.
Reporters and journalists from other news organizations visited the site this past week in a trip organized by Israel’s military. A tunnel also appeared to pass beneath a U.N.-run school near the headquarters.
The location of a Hamas military installation under important U.N. facilities is evidence, Israeli officials say, of Hamas’s widespread use of sensitive civilian infrastructure as shields to protect its militant activities.
Israeli military officials assert that people working at Unrwa would have been aware of the tunnel complex, either from activities during its construction or by what they said would have been a jump in electricity usage when the complex started operating.
Unrwa said in a statement that reports of tunnels under its Gaza headquarters “merit an independent inquiry,” and said that it “does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises.”
Unrwa provides housing, schooling, healthcare and other services to nearly six million Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Israeli military officials say they have known about the complex under Unrwa’s headquarters for a few years but say they decided they couldn’t use airstrikes to target it because of the U.N. presence above.
Israel has long alleged that Hamas has penetrated Unrwa and radicalized the organization, particularly in Gaza, where Hamas came to power via a coup in 2007. Israeli military intelligence has estimated in recent weeks that roughly 10% of Unrwa’s 12,000 or so employees in Gaza, most of whom are Palestinian, have ties to the militant group, including nearly a quarter of its male employees—a percentage that Israel says is higher than the roughly 15% of Gaza males who are linked to the group, through either its military or political wings.
The Israeli military in a statement late Saturday said it had found large quantities of weapons, including rifles, ammunition, grenades and explosives, in rooms of the Unrwa buildings above the tunnel complex.
Documents discovered in the Unrwa offices indicated they were being used by Hamas, the military said.
 Follow the MoneyCentral Nigeria channel on WhatsApp: Click here! for Palestinians here is a Hamas complex){kind=link}