al-Shifa Hospital

Israeli Assault Turned Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital Into ‘Mass Graveyard’

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Palestinians walk among the damaged buildings near the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on April 1, 2024.
 (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“This is part of the genocidal machine,” said one surgeon who volunteered at the hospital. “The genocide can only take place if the health system is destroyed.”

The Israeli military withdrew from Gaza’s largest medical facility on Monday after a deadly two-week assault that left the only partially functioning hospital complex in famine-stricken northern Gaza in total ruins.

Israel’s military, which a United Nations expert has accused of waging an “unrelenting war” on Gaza’s healthcare system, claimed in a statement that it killed 200 “terrorists” inside and around the facility and arrested more than 500 people “associated with terrorist organizations” during its prolonged raid on al-Shifa.

The military did not provide evidence that those killed were militants; Israel has repeatedly been accused of labeling unarmed civilians “terrorists.”

According to eyewitness accounts of the raid, Israeli soldiers abused and executed civilians inside the al-Shifa complex, including more than a dozen children. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said last week that its field team “received identical testimonies about the killings and executions of Palestinian children between the ages of four and 16” in and around the hospital.

Photographs taken in the aftermath of Israel’s assault show al-Shifa buildings scorched, riddled with bullet holes, and reduced to rubble. The hospital’s emergency, surgical, and obstetrics wards were reportedly devastated by Israeli forces, and an unknown number of bodies are believed to be trapped under building ruins.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday that Israel’s siege of the hospital killed at least 21 patients and left dozens of critically ill or wounded Gazans without “necessary means of care—no diapers, urine bags, water to clean wounds.”

Hossam Shabat, a Palestinian journalist reporting from northern Gaza, said he witnessed “hundreds of bodies” outside of the hospital when he visited the compound on Monday.

“The bodies were in horrific conditions; many had their hands and legs tied behind their backs and were flattened by a bulldozer,” Shabat wrote on social media. “Many of the bodies were burned and left to be crushed to pieces. Several bodies were decomposed and partly eaten by stray dogs. Most of the bodies were unrecognizable; families could only identify them by their clothes.”

“Al-Shifa Hospital was considered the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, catering to many complex cases,” Shabat added. “It has been completely destroyed; they burned it down and destroyed all medical equipment. Israeli occupation forces [have] one goal and it’s to destroy every inch of Gaza.”

Ghassan Abu Sitta, a surgeon who volunteered at al-Shifa, told Democracy Now! in an interview on Monday that prior to Israel’s assault on the hospital, al-Shifa “was 30% of the capacity of the health system in Gaza.” Israel raided the facility for the first time in November, and its latest attack began on March 18.

“The destruction of Shifa, the wanton destruction of Shifa, is a critical component of Israel’s plan to genocidally make sure that Gaza becomes an uninhabitable place, even after a cease-fire happens,” said Abu Sitta. “By destroying Shifa and making sure it is irreparable, the Israelis are trying to make sure that for years to come, Gaza does not have a functioning health system.”

Abu Sitta went on to criticize Western journalists for helping Israel perpetuate the narrative that al-Shifa was used by Hamas as a “command center” and thus an “acceptable” target.

“This is part of the genocidal machine,” said Abu Sitta. “The genocide can only take place if the health system is destroyed.”

Reuters described al-Shifa in the aftermath of the Israeli military’s two-week raid as a “wasteland of destroyed buildings” with “Palestinian bodies scattered in the dirt.”

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s media office, said in a statement Monday that Israeli forces “destroyed and burnt all buildings inside al-Shifa medical complex.”

“They bulldozed the courtyards, burying dozens of bodies of martyrs in the rubble, turning the place into a mass graveyard,” said al-Thawabta. “This is a crime against humanity.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingIsraeli Assault Turned Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital Into ‘Mass Graveyard’

Probe Demanded Over ‘Absurd’ Israeli Narrative About Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital

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2023.10.08 Pro-Palestinian Rally, Washington DC. Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
2023.10.08 Pro-Palestinian Rally, Washington DC. Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

“Israel needs to offer the outside world more than a few rifles and other armaments to justify its attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and ill and injured civilians,” said Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

A human rights monitor in Geneva on Friday called on the United Nations to help get to the bottom of Israel’s claim that its bombing and raid of Gaza’s largest medical complex this week was necessary to stop Hamas from running a vast military compound beneath it—an allegation that more than two days after the attack began, has been backed up only by images Israel released of a small cache of weapons.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said the time has come for an independent international investigation into “Israel’s absurd narrative” about al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, and noted that administrators at the facility are also demanding a probe “that includes a United Nations inspection.”

Israel did extensive damage to al-Shifa’s cardiac care department, surgical ward, and a pharmaceutical warehouse when it began bombing the hospital at dawn on Wednesday in just one of more than 245 attacks on medical facilities in Gaza since October 7. Israeli officials said they expected to find “the beating heart” of Hamas’ military operations in the hospital.

But after searching basement areas and several health departments as well as conducting a “violent interrogation campaign” targeting displaced people and medical personnel, Euro-Med said, Israel has so far produced only a video showing a small number of weapons.

“The absence of any neutral international party’s involvement in the Israeli military raids and searches of al-Shifa Medical Complex and other hospitals in the strip raises widespread doubts about the Israeli narrative,” said Euro-Med. “Israel needs to offer the outside world more than a few rifles and other armaments to justify its attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and ill and injured civilians.”

“We are left with nothing—no power, no food, no water. With every passing minute, we are losing a life. Overnight, we lost 22 persons.”

Separately, the BBC aired a segment on Friday in which the network noted the Israel Defense Forces first released a seven-minute video displaying the weapons it found—a video that appeared to be edited despite IDF claims that it was filmed in a single shot with no edits, and that raised several other questions.

“This IDF video was posted, then deleted, then reposted, this time without a section referring to an Israeli soldier who’d been held hostage,” reported the BBC.

Reporters from the network arrived at al-Shifa a few hours after the IDF released the original video, and were shown a different selection of weapons than those that appeared in the military’s video.

“What we see in this IDF video doesn’t equate Israel’s description of an ‘operational command center for Hamas,'” the BBC reported.

The footage, released late at night “after long hours of searches and fruitless inspections,” said Euro-Med, “raises a lot of questions, especially since no gunman has been arrested and no evidence has been found to back the previous claims about the presence of tunnels beneath the hospital.”

The IDF has also claimed that Hamas “knew we were coming” and had likely “made off with or hidden traces of their presence” at al-Shifa, The New York Times reported.

Israel’s narrative about al-Shifa has also drawn scrutiny from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, who said that even if the hospital were being used as a command center for Hamas, “protecting [patients] is paramount.”

“Even if health facilities are used for military purposes, the principles of distinction, precaution, and proportionality always apply,” Tedros said.

The director of al-Shifa, Muhammed Abu Salmiya, toldAl Jazeera Friday that staff are still trying to save as many of the 7,000 patients and refugees in the hospital as they can amid Israel’s ongoing siege, but they “lost all those who were in the intensive care unit” following the attack on Wednesday.

“We are left with nothing—no power, no food, no water,” said Abu Salmiya. “With every passing minute, we are losing a life. Overnight, we lost 22 persons.”

The Biden administration, which has continued supporting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as the death toll has grown to at least 11,470 in less than six weeks, said this week it believed the IDF’s claims about al-Shifa, with President Joe Biden saying it was a “fact” that Hamas has “their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital.”

A day after the bombing, as observers awaited evidence of an extensive command center beneath the hospital, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller appeared less confident in Israel’s narrative, telling reporters that the White House “never said there were command posts in every hospital in Gaza.”

“We don’t want to see hospitals struck from the air,” said Miller. “We understand that Hamas continues to use hospitals in places where they embed their fighters.”

After the BBC reported on the IDF’s changing video documentation of its findings, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft called Israel’s “propaganda” supporting its onslaught in Gaza “increasingly clownish.”

“Only Joe Biden seems to believe it,” said Parsi.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill pointed out that Israel itself is known to have built “an underground operating room and tunnels under the hospital” in 1983.

“This is not a secret,” Scahill wrote on social media, noting that Israel has claimed Hamas expanded the tunnels in recent years.

Allegations of a Hamas command center, supported by the U.S., said Scahill, “should be backed up by clear evidence, not a Geraldo Rivera/Al Capone’s vault-style video presentation featuring an English-speaking IDF soldier.”

“No matter what is or is not found, there is no justification for the repeated attacks against civilian hospitals—in fact al-Shifa is the largest hospital treating the most vulnerable people in Gaza, including NICU babies,” he added. “The mere existence of tunnels, originally built by Israel, does not prove the specific allegations made by the U.S. or Israel. The standard for such evidence should be very, very high.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingProbe Demanded Over ‘Absurd’ Israeli Narrative About Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital

Israel Orders Palestinians to Flee Parts of Southern Gaza, Continues Attacks on Hospitals

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Original article republished from DEMOCRACY NOW! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in a 41st consecutive day of unrelenting attacks by Israel’s military on the Gaza Strip. Overnight, Israel’s Air Force dropped leaflets over parts of the southern city of Khan Younis ordering people to leave their homes and shelters “for their own safety.” Many are being expelled for a second time, after Israel last month ordered more than a million Palestinians to leave their homes in northern Gaza.

On Wednesday, Israeli authorities allowed the first shipment of fuel into the Gaza Strip since early October. The U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says just over 6,000 gallons of fuel — half a tanker truck’s worth — was allowed to cross from Egypt. That’s just 9% of what UNRWA says is needed daily to sustain life-saving activities. Israel is not allowing the fuel to be used in hospitals or to power water and sewage pumps. 

The U.N.’s human rights chief, Volker Türk, said outbreaks of disease and hunger in Gaza now appear “inevitable.” His remarks came amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe at Gaza’s largest hospital, the Al-Shifa medical complex, which is being occupied by Israel’s army. Thousands of patients, medical workers and displaced Palestinians remain trapped inside the hospital and unable to leave. Medical workers report Israeli attacks have severely damaged Al-Shifa’s main surgery building, and about 200 people were reportedly blindfolded by Israeli troops and led away to interrogations. The World Health Organization’s Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says 26 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are now closed due to damage from Israeli strikes or because they have run out of fuel.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “Israel’s military incursion into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is totally unacceptable. Hospitals are not battlegrounds.”

Original article republished from DEMOCRACY NOW! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Continue ReadingIsrael Orders Palestinians to Flee Parts of Southern Gaza, Continues Attacks on Hospitals

Amid War Crimes Charges, Human Rights Watch Says Israel Must ‘End Attacks on Hospitals’

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Wounded people receive treatment at the Aqsa Indonesia Hospital after an Israeli attack on the Jibalia refugee camp on November 13, 2023. (Photo: Fadi Alwhidi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Israel’s broad-based attack on Gaza’s healthcare system is an attack on the sick and the injured, on babies in incubators, on pregnant people, on cancer patients. These actions need to be investigated as war crimes.”

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday demanded that the Israeli government immediately cease its deadly attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, arguing they’re part of a far-reaching and unlawful assault on the territory’s crumbling healthcare system.

In a new report, HRW examines the impacts of the Israeli bombing campaign, ground invasion, and siege on Gaza’s medical personnel and facilities, a majority of which have stopped functioning due to airstrike damage or lack of critical supplies, from fuel to anesthetics.

“Israel’s repeated attacks damaging hospitals and harming healthcare workers, already hard hit by an unlawful blockade, have devastated Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure,” said A. Kayum Ahmed, special adviser on the right to health at Human Rights Watch. “The strikes on hospitals have killed hundreds of people and put many patients at grave risk because they’re unable to receive proper medical care.”

Over the past week, Israeli forces have surrounded and intensified their bombardment of several hospitals in northern Gaza including al-Shifa, the enclave’s largest medical facility. Israel has also bombed ambulances and people desperately attempting to flee hospitals as they’ve come under attack.

“On November 3, the Israeli military struck a marked ambulance just outside of Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital,” HRW said. “Video footage and photographs taken shortly after the strike and verified by Human Rights Watch show a woman on a stretcher in the ambulance and at least 21 dead or injured people in the area surrounding the ambulance, including at least 5 children.”

“An IDF spokesperson said in a televised interview that day: ‘Our forces saw terrorists using ambulances as a vehicle to move around. They perceived a threat and accordingly we struck that ambulance,'” the group added. “Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that the ambulance was being used for military purposes.”

HRW similarly questioned Israeli assertions that Hamas is using Gaza’s hospitals, including al-Shifa, for military operations.

Targeting hospitals is a war crime under international law, but medical facilities can lose their protected status if they’re used to commit an “act harmful to the enemy,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

HRW argued that Tuesday that “no evidence put forward” by the Israeli government thus far “would justify depriving hospitals and ambulances of their protected status under international humanitarian law.”

“When a journalist at a news conference showing video footage of damage to the Qatar Hospital sought additional information to verify voice recordings and images presented, the Israeli spokesperson said, ‘Our strikes are based on intelligence,'” HRW said. “Even if accurate, Israel has not demonstrated that the ensuing hospital attacks were proportionate.”

The group said Israel “should end attacks on hospitals” and urged the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the International Criminal Court to investigate.

“Israel’s broad-based attack on Gaza’s healthcare system is an attack on the sick and the injured, on babies in incubators, on pregnant people, on cancer patients,” said Ahmed. “These actions need to be investigated as war crimes.”

The new analysis came amid horrific reports of the impact that Israel’s assault is having on healthcare workers, patients, and displaced people seeking refuge from near-constant airstrikes.

Reuters reported that people trapped inside al-Shifa Hospital “plan to start burying bodies within the hospital compound” on Tuesday “because the situation has become untenable.” The World Health Organization said over the weekend that the facility is “not functioning as a hospital anymore” due to power outages and a lack of supplies, which have caused the deaths of a number of patients—including premature babies.

Dr. Ahmed Al Mokhallalati, a surgeon at al-Shifa, told Reuters that “the bodies were generating an unbearable stench and posing a risk of infection.”

“Unfortunately there is no approval from the Israelis to even bury the bodies within the hospital area,” he said. “Today … civilians started digging within the hospital to try and bury the bodies on their own responsibility without any arrangements by the Israeli side. Burying 120 bodies needs a lot of equipment, it can’t be by hand efforts and by single-person efforts. It will take hours and hours to be able to bury all these bodies.”

Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said that on Tuesday morning, “bullets were fired into one of three MSF premises located near al-Shifa hospital and sheltering MSF staff and their families—over 100 people, including 65 children, who ran out of food last night.”

“Thousands of civilians, medical staff, and patients are currently trapped in hospitals and other locations under fire in Gaza City; they must be protected and afforded safe passage if they wish to leave,” the group added. “Above that, there must be a total and immediate cease-fire.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingAmid War Crimes Charges, Human Rights Watch Says Israel Must ‘End Attacks on Hospitals’

Death toll in Gaza surges towards 12,000 as WHO says the main hospital ‘is not functioning’

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/death-toll-in-gaza-surges-towards-12000-as-who-says-the-main-hospital-is-not-functioning

This photo released by Dr Marawan Abu Saada shows prematurely born Palestinian babies in Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 12, 2023
This photo released by Dr Marawan Abu Saada shows prematurely born Palestinian babies in Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 12, 2023

AS THE death toll in Gaza approaches 12,000, including nearly 5,000 children, the Al-Shifa hospital came under fierce attack from Israeli forces yesterday.

While thousands have fled the bombardment of Gaza’s largest hospital, hundreds of patients, including dozens of babies, remain in the bombed out building at risk of dying because of a lack of electricity as well as a lack of medical and food supplies.

The Israeli military said that it had placed gallons of fuel near the hospital to help power its generators, but Hamas fighters had prevented staff from reaching it.

The Health Ministry in Gaza disputed that and said the fuel would have provided less than an hour of electricity.

World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on social media that Shifa has been without water for three days and “is not functioning as a hospital anymore.”

…

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/death-toll-in-gaza-surges-towards-12000-as-who-says-the-main-hospital-is-not-functioning

Continue ReadingDeath toll in Gaza surges towards 12,000 as WHO says the main hospital ‘is not functioning’