Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak set off a firestorm on Monday, Nov. 20, when he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the tunnels and basements under Al-Shifa Hospital, which Israeli authorities have presented as “proof” that the hospital had to be attacked, were actually built by Israel in the 1980s. “It’s already [been] known for many years that they have the bunkers that originally [were] built by Israeli constructors underneath Shifa [which] were used as a command post of Hamas. And, a kind of junction of several tunnels are part of this system,” Barak said. “It’s probably not the only kind of command post, several others are under other hospitals or in other sensitive places, but it for sure had been used by Hamas even during this conflict.”
Amanpour, who was somewhat taken aback by Barak’s revelation, asked, “When you say [the bunker under Al-Shifa] was built by Israeli engineers, did you misspeak?” Barak replied: “No, decades ago, we were running the place ... we helped them to build these bunkers.” To which Amanpour answered: “OK. That’s sort of thrown me a little bit.”
