Yossi Schwartz ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 17.11.2023
Since Israel’s ground troops invaded Gaza, the fate of its war has become largely entwined with the fate of the territory’s largest hospital Al Shifa.
Zionist soldiers on Wednesday morning stormed that hospital Al-Shifa, searching its corridors and rooms for evidence to support Israel’s assertion that the medical complex doubles as a secret military command center. For 18 hours they hunted for weapons and interrogated those they found inside, according to both Israeli officials and Palestinians at the hospital.
Israel says Al-Shifa conceals an underground military base and has presented its capture as a key to Israeli success. The Zionist’s propaganda also says that Hamas’s use of the hospital proves Hamas defends itself with human shields. On the other hand, Hamas and the hospital’s leadership have denied the Israeli assertions. Al-Shifa, they say, is nothing other than a medical center and sanctuary for thousands of people uprooted by Israel’s strikes on Gaza. For Palestinians, the Israeli military’s focus on a major hospital, when such facilities are typically off-limits during times of war, is proof of its war crimes.
18 hours after the raid on the hospital began, the Israeli military released photos and video that it said backed its assertions. It distributed images of 13 guns that it said its soldiers had discovered in the hospital, and that it had found a military command center in the hospital’s M.R.I. unit. The Zionist butchers did not have a shred of evidence to back the claim that Al Shifa was used as Hamas headquarters.
In a video taken at the hospital, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, displayed caches of guns, ammunition, protective vests and Hamas military uniforms, some of which, he said, had been hidden behind M.R.I. machines and others in nearby storage units.
“The New York Times was unable to verify the provenance of the weapons and equipment in the images or assess the claim of the command center’s existence. Apart from a gunfight outside the hospital at the start of the raid, there were no reports of clashes with Hamas gunmen at the site. In a statement, Hamas dismissed the Israeli account as “a fabricated story that no one would believe” [1]
Should the Israelis in the end be unable to come up with compelling evidence that the hospital was used to house troops, store weapons and command fighters, they may find that the time left to achieve their stated goal — removing Hamas from power — has been curtailed. Israel’s targeting of Al-Shifa has already drawn global concern; a failure to prove the raid’s necessity could make Israel’s international partners less supportive of further genocide.
“Israel faced an unprecedented wave of international condemnation after its troops entered the Shifa hospital complex in Gaza, while the UN and aid agencies expressed concern about the impact of the raid on staff and patients. The scale and virulence of the global condemnation from Arab and western governments raised questions about how much longer Israel can continue with its offensive in the face of waning international support” [2]
In another lie of the White House: “We have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters during a briefing” [3]
Thus, the Zionist monsters attacked hospitals justifying its killing of sick, injured and babies on lies that have been proven to be lies supported by the Biden administration. For 18 hours it tried to find the headquarter of Hamas under Al Shifa that exists only in its propaganda.
The USA has joined this lie: “The Biden administration on Tuesday confirmed long-held Israeli assertions that Hamas is using medical facilities for military purposes, as the Israel Defense Forces closes in on Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, believed to host the terror group’s main command post.
“We have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters during a briefing.
“Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad members operate a command and control [center] from al-Shifa in Gaza City. They have stored weapons there and they’re prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against that facility,” Kirby said, citing US intelligence assessments” [4]
A famous saying is that when one has a hammer, everything is a nail. Similarly, any ground diggings are a Hamas tunnel for the Zionists. For example:
“Sanad, Al Jazeera’s digital investigation agency, has disproved the latest claim by Israeli authorities that there is a tunnel for Hamas fighters under the Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetic Hospital, commonly known as the Qatari Hospital.
Israeli authorities have often claimed that there are command bunkers and main tunnels running under Gaza hospitals as a justification for targeting health facilities, which are protected in war by international law.” [5]
This is the time for international boycott by the120 states who support ceasefire of this Zionist monster that among other things bombed and shoot hospitals as part of the genocide of the Palestinians.
Down with the Zionist apartheid state!
For red and free Palestine from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/world/middleeast/al-shifa-hospital-israel.html
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/15/turkeys-erdogan-calls-israel-terror-state-as-he-condemns-gaza-hospital-raid
[3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-backs-israeli-claims-on-hamas-use-of-hospitals-including-shifa-for-military-ops/
[4] Ibid
[5] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/8/investigation-disproves-israel-claim-of-hamas-tunnel-under-gaza-hospital