Hamas tried to sneak its fighters out of the Gaza Strip in ambulances that evacuated dozens of wounded Palestinians to Egypt earlier this week, a senior Biden administration official said Friday.

Hamas had compiled a list of the seriously wounded that it wanted to evacuate from Gaza for treatment in Egypt, along with thousands of foreign nationals looking to flee the enclave.

The list was then vetted by Egypt and the United States, which found that a third of the names on it were of Hamas fighters, the administration official said, adding that the list was rejected and none of the 76 wounded Palestinians who were ultimately evacuated in ambulances out of Gaza were members of the terror group.

  • burchalka@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I think they must present their considerations/justifications to neutral third party, but there’s danger of very potent intelligence being publicized. Imagine if IDF/US military had a high ranking informant among Hamas leadership, who then let them know that they plan to use ambulance movement to smuggle forces/equipment in and out of Gaza. If they publish it far and wide, that person is in grave danger, but more impactful - they won’t be able to provide Intel anymore…

    • LaLiLuLuCo@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Hamas executes collaborators regularly so you’re right.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosab_Hassan_Yousef this guy defected because he saw it when he was in an Israeli prison.

      Yousef said he saw the light after a stint in an Israeli jail during the mid-1990s. At Megiddo Prison, he witnessed Hamas inmates leading a brutal year-long campaign to weed out supposed Israeli collaborators. “During that time, Hamas tortured and killed hundreds of prisoners,” he said, recalling vivid memories of needles being inserted under finger nails and bodies charred with burning plastics. Many, if not all, had nothing to do with Israeli intelligence. “I will never forget their screams,” he continued. “I started asking myself a question. What if Hamas succeeded in destroying Israel and building a state. Will they destroy our people in this way?”[11]

      I won’t bother digging up the sources unless someone asks, but Israel notified the population of Gaza earlier in the war that their families would be relocated to safety (I. E. Given Israeli citizenship and a place to live) and given a financial reward if they snitched on Hamas in any way that materially helped the war goal of freeing the hostages. There’s probably thousands of collaborators there now.