We’ve known that Hamas operates in hospitals and schools in Gaza, despite their heated denials. We’ve also known about the extensive terror tunnel network under the Strip, where they store weapons, hide hostages, and plan attacks.
But a new find by the Israel Defense Forces is even more troubling – Hamas has been operating a sophisticated data center directly beneath the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), complete with an electrical room, industrial battery power banks, and living quarters for Hamas terrorists overseeing the computer operations.
This is far from the first time the UNRWA has come under scrutiny:
See:
New Report Reveals the Extent to Which Hamas Has Infiltrated UN Agency
NEW: United Nations Directly Implicated in October 7th Attacks, U.S. State Dept Freezes Funding
However, the new discovery is sobering because, among other things, the facility was “built precisely under the location where Israel would not consider looking initially, let alone target in an airstrike.”
The terrorist technology center had escaped detection by the Israelis—until now:
At the time of the initial ground offensive in Gaza City, the military had not found or known much about the Hamas data center. But new intelligence, primarily emerging from the Shin Bet interrogations of captured terrorists, helped pinpoint where to dig.
“The IDF was here previously, the first time was to destroy the enemy, but when we were here the last time we collected a lot of intelligence documents and findings, a lot of prisoners, and thanks to this we reached here. Now we carried out a targeted operation to take this capability away,” said the commander of the 401st Armored Brigade, Col. Benny Aharon, while giving a media tour of the tunnel and UN complex on Thursday.
“We had a basis of information, but not enough to be able to dig down 20 meters and find it, we needed a bit more. There’s information we get from prisoners we capture, from computers we find, from documents, maps,” he said.
Two IDF soldiers were killed by Hamas sniper fire as they tried to reach the data center. Twenty meters below the surface, the IDF found sophisticated technology:
There were about half a dozen rows of server cabinets, each with racks of computers for Hamas’s operations.
“We are now at the heart of the secret… under the main UNRWA building. Here is where Hamas kept its intelligence servers,” Hazan said. He said that “to destroy it, totally, so that Hamas cannot use this intelligence supremacy again, you need boots on the ground.”
IDF officials believe Hamas used the server farm for intelligence gathering, data processing and communications. Hard drives and some of the computers were taken to Israel to be investigated by intelligence authorities before the tunnel system was demolished in a large explosion.
While pro-Hamas protests continue to rage around the world, the governmental entity/terror group continues to prove that they will observe no norms nor show any human decency as they campaign against the destruction of Israel.
Meanwhile, the discovery further points to the rot in the UNRWA and shows us that the U.S. should have nothing to do with the organization.