John Kirby Says U.S. Believes Hamas Used Tunnels Under Hospitals In Gaza to Hold Hostages

Fox News anchor John Roberts on Tuesday reported on breaking news from White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who said the U.S. confirmed Hamas had used hospitals both as command centers and to hold hostages taken from Israel during Hamas’s devastating attack on civilians on October 7th.

Anchor Sandra Smith began the conversation, briefly cutting away from Fox’s March for Israel coverage, by saying, “Well, that was the anti-Semitism task force there, a bipartisan group cracking down on that, as is a major surge in this country, up over 300% just from the same time last year in this country. And what a show of support, John, to look at those crowds there in Washington.”

“And very moving statements as well from the families of the hostages that are being held in Israel,” Roberts noted, adding:

Alana Zeitchik, the cousin of six hostages said, and this really kind of embodies the whole thing. She said you could abhor the suffering of the Palestinian people and you could abhor the suffering of families like mine. You know, one of the big questions is what comes next in this conflict?

And again, big news from both the White House and the Pentagon today. John Kirby starting it off aboard Air Force One, saying, I can confirm for you that we have information that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad used some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including al-Shifa and tunnels underneath them, to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages. So that Sandra really buttresses the argument that Israel has been making for a couple of weeks now, that Hamas has been using these hospitals, it’s their headquarters and for other military operations. And you don’t know what Israel is going to do about it, but certainly they’re heading in the direction that they’ve got to go after those hospitals.

Kirby’s statement marked the first time in the war that the U.S. said it had confirmed hostages had been held underneath Gaza’s hospitals and followed the IDF releasing video taken from beneath a hospital in Gaza City to make the same claim.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.