The Jakarta-based MER-C was responding to the accusation by the Israeli military, which said, as reported by Reuters, that it had exposed a network of Hamas tunnels, command centers and rocket launchers beneath and adjacent to some hospitals in northern Gaza, including the Indonesia Hospital.

Clarifying its position on Monday, MER-C made it clear that the hospital’s only purpose was to tend to the sick, asserting that it had “no involvement with military activities or with any organizations other than medical bodies”.

“Israel’s accusation could be a precursor for an imminent attack against the Indonesia Hospital,” MER-C presidium chairman Henry Hidayatullah said in Jakarta.

Nur Ikhwan Abadi, a MER-C engineer who was involved in the construction of the hospital from 2011 to 2015, said the hospital had no tunnel for Hamas purposes and that its fuel tank and power generators were kept in a separate building at the back of the hospital for security reasons.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Sunday that one satellite image showed rocket launchers located across the street from the Indonesia Hospital, Reuters reported. Hagari also presented videos, photographs and audio recordings that he said demonstrated Hamas' strategy of using hospitals as cover to shield its underground operations.

Read also: Indonesian hospital in Gaza in its last hours amid Israel’s fuel blockade

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