Former Israeli PM: ‘Khan Younis is the real headquarters of Hamas’

The former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said that “Khan Younis is the real headquarters of Hamas,” in an interview aired on Friday. 

In the interview, he said that Israel is still yet to come to the heart of the operation.

He said that in Khan Younis, south Gaza, “they [Hamas] have their leadership, they are hiding, they have bunkers, command positions, launching pads”.

Shona Murray, the Euronews correspondent interviewing him, quizzed him on previous Israeli statements which said that al-Shifa Hospital in north Gaza was allegedly where Hamas was operating from and that there had been no evidence of that.

“I don’t know, there is so much fake news, it is part of life. But if you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have said the centre is really in Khan Younis.”

The comments come as the Israeli military has dropped leaflets in south Gaza ordering people to leave their homes and head to shelters, in order to allow Israeli forces to reach Hamas. 

Around 1.1 million people in north Gaza were forced to leave their homes when Israeli forces dropped leaflets ordering them to leave, with no guarantee of their return. Many civilians were targeted with air strikes and bombs while they were leaving for the south.