The White House said on Tuesday its independent intelligence supported Israel’s claim that Hamas was using Gaza’s hospitals, including its biggest, to hide command posts and hostages while a glimmer of progress emerged in hostage negotiations, Reutes reports.

White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on the presidential plane, Air Force One, that intelligence confirmed the Hamas group, which rules Gaza, used tunnels underneath Al-Shifa and other hospitals to conceal military operations and to hold hostages.

Israel has made the same claims, which Hamas denies.

“We have information that confirms that Hamas is using that particular hospital for a command and control node” and probably to store weapons, Kirby said. “That is a war crime.”

Kirby said that the US intelligence came from a variety of methods but that he could not be specific about the evidence.

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