JERUSALEM (VINnews) – The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security agency said Thursday that Hamas has been using Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis for the torture and interrogation of Palestinians.

In a joint statement, the military and Shin Bet said Hamas has been “increasing the activity of its security apparatuses and attempting to impose its rule through intimidation, interrogations, and torture of residents” amid an “erosion in support” for the group among Gazans.

The agencies said intelligence shows Hamas exploits the hospital and carries out torture and interrogations there. “According to the information in our possession, in the Yassin building, on the second floor of the hospital’s outpatient clinics, interrogations by Hamas’s internal security and military intelligence are taking place,” the statement said. “Beyond this, Hamas exploits the hospital as a center of governance unrelated to its medical function, for the purposes of interrogations, torture, and collecting money.”

Additional interrogations are taking place in a building that previously served as offices, then a cafeteria, later a house of worship, and now functions as a Hamas interrogation center, according to the statement.

Nasser Hospital continues to serve as a “major military infrastructure” for Hamas, the IDF and Shin Bet said. Patients and staff have witnessed the permanent presence of Hamas operatives, some masked, in various areas of the compound. The use of the hospital creates fear and harms patients, service providers and medical staff, the military said.

Israel has previously presented evidence that Palestinian terror groups regularly use medical facilities as bases of operations because of their protected status under international law. Israeli hostages have also said they were held at Nasser Hospital.

Earlier this year, Doctors Without Borders said it suspended noncritical medical activities at the hospital due to the presence of armed men. Last year, a doctor who serves as a spokesperson for Nasser Hospital indicated he had been threatened by Palestinian Islamic Jihad after refusing to allow the group’s operatives to enter and use the facility.

“The exploitation of civilian infrastructure for interrogations and torture is a widespread phenomenon within the Hamas terror organization. These actions by the Hamas terror organization constitute a violation of international law, which prohibits the military use of hospitals,” the IDF and Shin Bet statement said.

The military warned Gazans that Hamas “is afraid of losing control of the Strip, and therefore uses hospitals, schools, and other civilian facilities for its needs.”