Live Update From the Liveblog of Thursday, August 20, 2026 By Emanuel Fabian Today, 3:00 pm Hamas has been using Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis for “torture and interrogations” of Palestinians, the military and the Shin Bet security agency say. In a joint statement, the IDF and Shin Bet say that Hamas has been “increasing the activity of its security apparatuses and attempting to impose its rule through intimidation, interrogations, and torture of residents,” following an “erosion in support” for the terror group by Gazans. The military and Shin Bet say they can now reveal intelligence information “showing that the Hamas terror organization exploits Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and carries out torture and interrogations at the hospital.” “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. 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,” the statement says. “Additional interrogations are currently being carried out in a building that was formerly used as offices at the hospital, then as a cafeteria, later converted into a house of worship, and today serves as a Hamas interrogation center,” the military and Shin Bet say. According to the IDF and Shin Bet, Nasser Hospital continues to serve Hamas as a “major military infrastructure,” and “patients and hospital staff witness the permanent presence of Hamas operatives, some of them masked, in various areas of the hospital compound.” The IDF says that “Hamas’s use of the hospital creates fear and harms patients, service providers, and medical staff.” Israel has repeatedly offered evidence of medical facilities’ regular use by Palestinian terror groups as bases of operations due to their protected status. Israeli hostages have also said they were held at Nasser Hospital.