Much of the recent focus of Israel’s battle against Hamas has centered around the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Israeli intelligence sources identified the hospital as a hidden headquarters of Hamas where they used patients and hospital staff as human shields to avoid Israeli airstrikes. When they finally entered the hospital they began searching the lower levels to root out the terrorists while delivering aid for the patients above. The search turned out to be productive, but you would never guess that while reading the AP’s coverage of this development this morning. Their title suggests that the search “has yet to reveal [the] Hamas base.” And the first portion of the article makes it sound like the effort was a total bust.

Meanwhile, soldiers continued searching Shifa Hospital in the north, in a raid that began early Wednesday but has yet to uncover evidence of the central Hamas command center that Israel has said is concealed beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital, Gaza’s largest, deny the allegations.

Broadening the offensive to the south — where Israel already carries out daily air raids — threatens to worsen an already severe humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. Over 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Gaza, with most having fled to the south, where food, water and electricity are increasingly scarce.

So Hamas “denies the allegations.” I suppose that’s all there is to it then. I’m certainly glad we cleared that up. (/sarc) The coverage continues in that tone for a fair bit. In fact, you have to scroll down past nine paragraphs before you learn that the IDF found duffel bags in an MRI lab in the basement containing assault rifles, grenades, and Hamas military uniforms.  What sort of MRIs were these people running in that lab that would require that type of “equipment?”

At Townhall, Spencer Brown offers a more realistic assessment of the search results. The IDF obviously hit pay dirt.

As Israel Defense Forces continued clearing out Hamas terrorists around Gaza City this week, they made their way to the Al-Shifa Hospital, long believed to be a base of operations for the Iran-backed terrorists, and found exactly what they expected: weapons caches, bastardized hospital equipment, and all the signs of a Hamas HQ hidden within a hospital to use Gazan civilians as human shields.

IDF Spokesman Jonathan Conricus released a video of his survey of just one area inside the Al-Shifa hospital, an apparent MRI center. Explaining that the IDF had secured the area, Conricus said what the IDF found has “totally confirmed, without any doubt, that Hamas systematically uses hospitals in their military operations in violation of international law.”

The first thing to recall about the lack of evidence of an obvious Hamas “headquarters” in the basement of Shifa Hospital is that Hamas had more than a month’s notice that the IDF was on the way. Israel took its time moving in and dropped leaflets letting people know they should clear the area because the military was coming in. That was more than enough time for the terrorists to grab most of their things and head south. Frankly, the IDF was lucky to have found what they did.

Beyond that, what was the AP expecting the IDF to find in terms of a “headquarters?” Hamas is a terrorist organization. Were they supposed to have large banners welcoming people to The New And Improved Hamas HQ? Should there have been signs reminding fighters to carefully fill out their grenade requisition forms? It was a basement hideout where they could gather to collect information and send fighters out to conduct their attacks with little chance that Israel would bomb them there.

There are hundreds of additional tunnels to be cleaned out and (hopefully) hostages to be recovered. The work continues and it’s going to be bloody work at times. That’s just the nature of warfare. But now, at least for the time being, Shifa Hospital can go back to being an actual hospital and focus on treating people without militants clogging up their clinics.