Yossi Schwartz ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 17.11.2023
“President Joe Biden is “wholly responsible” for the Israeli assault on Gaza’s largest hospital, Al Shifa said Hamas. The accusation was made in a statement on Wednesday, a day after the White House said that US intelligence sources corroborated Israel’s claims that Hamas has buried an operational Centre under the hospital. The Israeli forces said they were raiding the complex because Hamas has a command center underneath it and uses connected tunnels to hold hostages, an allegation that doctor Ahmed El Mokhallalati, a surgeon in the hospital denied.
The United Nations children’s agency said that its top official visited the Gaza Strip early Wednesday and met with children and their families in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the territory.
“What I saw and heard was devastating. They have endured repeated bombardment, loss and displacement,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement. “Inside the Strip, there is nowhere safe for Gaza’s one million children to turn.”
“The AP reports that Russell is among the few international officials to have visited the Gaza Strip since the latest escalation in violence began.
In the statement she called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and for aid to be allowed unrestricted, saying that “in the hospital’s neonatal ward, tiny babies were clinging to life in incubators, as doctors worried how they could keep the machines running without fuel” [1]
Russell also met UNICEF staff and their families. Over 100 UN staff have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its war aimed at destroying Hamas in response to the surprise 7 October attack inside Israel that killed about 1,2000 Israelis and saw an estimated 240 hostages abducted by Hamas back into Gaza.
“At 1 a.m. Friday, as active fighting raged between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, a projectile streaked over Gaza’s largest medical complex and crashed into the center of the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital, a place where thousands of displaced Gazans had sought shelter. It landed just a few feet from Ahmed Hijazi, a social media personality who has been documenting the conflict. He filmed a video of the projectile flying in, and then of a man in agony, his leg mangled by the impact. On Friday morning. Al-Shifa’s director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, said in a phone interview that seven people had been killed and several others had been wounded. he Israeli military blamed unspecified Palestinian militants, saying a “misfired projectile” aimed at Israel Defense Forces troops deployed nearby had instead hit the hospital. But at least three of the projectiles that struck it appear to have been Israeli munitions, according to pictures of weapons fragments collected and verified by The New York Times and analyzed by expert”
“The Israeli military’s raid on Gaza’s largest hospital early on Wednesday 15.11 after 40 days of the war on Gaza. The conduct and outcome of the operation could affect international sentiment about the invasion as well as the continuing negotiations to free the hostages captured by Hamas last month.
For years, Israel has claimed that Hamas had built a military command center beneath the hospital, turning its patients into human shields. To Palestinians, the hospital is a civilian institution, and any role as a military base has been denied by Hamas and the hospital leadership. For Israel’s critics, the focus on the hospital, which has in recent weeks been a refuge for thousands of displaced Gazans in addition to the gravely ill, embodies what they see as Israel’s disregard for Palestinian life. Israel’s strikes on Gaza since Oct. 7 have killed more than 11,500 Palestinians, including more than 4,600 children, according to Gazan health officials — one of the largest tolls in any air campaign this century.” [2]
The United States supports Israel’s claims but if the Zionist murdering army will not provide convincing evidence that the hospital was used as the headquarter of Hamas it will provide another proof that Israel and the USA are war criminals.
Before the raid, the World Health Organization said that the hospital had ceased to function, and hospital officials had described grim conditions for patients. They said that medicine, anesthetics and fuel had all but run out, shutting down generators and lifesaving equipment. Officials said that roughly three dozen premature babies were at particular risk.
The BBC has provoked outrage among the Zionists after a presenter of the BBC said the IDF was “targeting medical teams as well as Arab speakers” during a military operation inside Gaza’s main hospital.
According to the Zionists, the Israeli military has already provided evidence to show that Hamas uses the hospital as a base, including footage of Hamas fighters firing shoulder-launched rockets from outside the hospital entrance.
Only in the mind of the bloodthirsty Zionists this is a proof for Hamas’ headquarters under the hospital.
In a miserable PR of Israel, the murdering goons in uniforms have delivered fuel, incubators, baby food and medical supplies to the hospital ahead of and during the operation. Really? The 300 liters of fuel that is enough for less than half an hour providing fuel to the hospital?
The Zionist army had said that based on intelligence information and an operational necessity, IDF forces are carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa hospital. This admission is proof for war crime as it is forbidden to fight in hospitals. Not only this but the siege on the hospitals and the lack of fuel and the shooting caused the death of premature babies.
‘During Israel’s raid on Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, the Zionist’s army raided Gaza’s largest hospital, using violence and humiliation on patients, staff and displaced people trapped inside, witnesses say. Israel’s raid on Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital has brought “terror and death” to the thousands trapped inside, witnesses say. The Zionist army acted brutally during its assault on Wednesday. Thousands have been caught in al-Shifa for days while the apartheid force attacked the area around the complex, saying that it is used as a Hamas base. Reports say food and water have been scarce while decomposing corpses have been accumulating. Omar Zaqout, an emergency room employee at al-Shifa, said that Israeli soldiers have “detained and brutally assaulted some of the men who were taking refuge at the hospital. Israeli forces took the detained men naked and blindfolded. [They] did not bring any aid or supplies, they only brought terror and death,” he said, adding that the army has surrounded every building within the hospital complex.
“More than 180 dead bodies are deteriorating and are still lying in the hospital’s yard,” he said. “The situation is very terrifying; gunshots are heard everywhere in the hospital’s perimeters”
“Imagine being in a hospital where the water is not there, the basic hygiene of the people going to the toilet is a challenge. Food and drinking water haven’t come to the hospital for the sixth day now, with no way of getting anything in the hospital,” El Mokhallalati added.
He also said that the oxygen station was not working, and in general the staff was not able to care for their patients.
“Where is the international community? Where is the international organization which is made to help and support the Zionist barbarians the health system in the war areas to make sure that humanitarian needs are met in the war areas in war times?” he asked” [3]
Dr. El Mokhallalati, do not expect the imperialists and their institution to stop the massacres and the genocide by Israel they support Israel because it is the front line of the imperialists in the region. Only the Arab revolution will end this barbarism.
As long as the Zionist apartheid state exists it will continue to carry out genocides; this is its function in the imperialist division of labor. Herzl wrote in the 19th century that the Zionists will be a ‘Bulwark against Asia’ in other words the Zionists will murder to keep the rule of the imperialists including Israel in the region.
Down with the Zionist barbarians!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/nov/15/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-israeli-military-al-shifa-hospital-gaza-operation
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-al-shifa-hospital.html
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/15/terror-witnesses-recount-israels-raid-inside-gazas-al-shifa-hospital