Israeli military says it found weapons inside UNRWA headquarters

The Israel Defense Forces on Friday said their forces had found machine guns, grenades, rockets, and aerial drones inside the United Nations aid group’s headquarters in Gaza City. Israeli troops also found in the compound an underground laboratory for manufacturing explosives, the IDF said. Israel has repeatedly accused the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas of using the UN aid group’s facilities as staging areas for its operations. Israeli forces told civilians to evacuate the area before it conducted military operations there, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said during a press conference Friday morning.

The UNRWA described its facilities as shelters for civilians fleeing danger in Gaza in a statement released on Friday. It added that hundreds of people had died due to military operations around its aid centers and that nearly 200 UNRWA employees died during the monthslong war.

Did the IDF say anything about its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon? Lt. Col. Shoshani on Friday told listeners that many reporters have asked him when a war against Hezbollah would start. It already started roughly nine months ago on October 8, he said. Hezbollah began supporting Hamas in its war against Israel with the intent to kill Israeli citizens and destroy the state of Israel, Shoshani added. The IDF has been conducting precise attacks against the terrorists’ infrastructure in the north, he said.

Did he say anything about the aid going into Gaza? Shoshani accused Hamas of using missiles to attack locations where aid was entering Gaza. He said the terrorists had also abused civilians who tried to accept international aid without first paying high prices to Hamas for it. Hamas militants have beaten civilians publicly and spray-painted the word “thief” on their backs when they tried to grab the aid before Hamas took it, Shoshani said.

Shoshani also accused the UN of improperly counting the number of aid trucks entering Gaza. The World Health Organization on Thursday called for restrictions on aid to be lifted, saying dozens of aid trucks and hundreds of pallets of aid were waiting to enter Gaza.

Did the IDF’s Shoshani say anything about cease-fire negotiations? He did not address the topic in Friday’s press conference. But earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to continue the war with Hamas until it destroys the terrorist organization. Israel would not agree to any cease-fire agreement that conflicts with any of its objectives for the war, he said.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about Netanyahu’s recent clarification about Israel’s objective for any cease-fire agreement.