Today 18th March 2024 saw many waking up to the latest IDF fairytale to justify their cold blooded murdering of babies, females with specific targetting of the sick in hospitals. Early Monday morning, the terrorists launched a raid on Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital once again. The boring old tale, ‘senior Hamas officials were in the area and using the hospital to plan and carry out terror activity’.
Apparently the rogue regime’s intelligence indicated that Hamas operatives and commanders from the northern Gaza Strip recently arrived at the hospital premises to use the buildings as a command center command center to manage the fighting against IDF troops.
This time they admitted there was no information on hostages being held in the area, according to the IDF (International Diaper Forces).
In a statement overnight, the military said troops at the hospital were “briefed in advance regarding the importance of preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment” and that Arabic speakers were with the security forces to facilitate communication with patients and staff.
The facts:
Israeli forces besieged and raided Gaza’s largest hospital again in the early hours of Monday.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said heavily armed Israeli troops, accompanied by drones and tanks, launched the offensive in the early hours of dawn on Monday and began shooting inside the complex.
This is Israel’s fourth attack on the hospital since October 7.
The Israeli military says it is conducting a “precise operation” in al-Shifa Hospital, claiming that Hamas has regrouped and is using the medical facility to “conduct and promote terrorist activity”.
Israeli army vehicles are stationed inside the hospital’s courtyard, as its forces launched missiles and opened fire at the hospital’s specialised surgery building.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, some 30,000 people – including displaced civilians, wounded patients and medical staff – are trapped inside the hospital amid Israel’s onslaught.
“What the occupation forces are doing is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” the ministry said, adding that there are a “number of martyrs and wounded”In a message in English on Telegram, the ministry said the raid, which began at 2am local time (00:00 GMT) has resulted in a “number of martyrs and wounded”. It said there were Israeli vehicles inside the hospital’s courtyard and that Israeli forces launched missiles and opened fire at al-Shifa’s specialised surgery building.
From the Tongue of a Journalist
A Palestinian journalist trapped inside al-Shifa Hospital has described the situation in the facility as “catastrophic” amid “intense clashes” and gunfire. Wadea Abu Alsoud made the comments in a video posted to Instagram. “This might be my last video,” he said. “We’re now besieged inside al-Shifa Hospital. We’re being heavily shot at. The occupation suddenly raided the hospital and its vicinity. As you can hear now, there are intense clashes in the vicinity of al-Shifa Hospital. We’re hearing sounds coming from the gate. There are shrapnels falling over the hospital’s yard.” He added: “We’re currently besieged. Pray for us to get out safely. These are clashes as you can hear… we don’t know what’s going on outside al-Shifa hospital, but the situation here is catastrophic.”Washington Post Debunked Danial Hagari’s Previous Lies on Ash-Shifaa Hospital
While the same Hagari claims there are Hamaas members inside the Hospital, it is important to ask if Hagari can be trusted, knowing fully well he has a fatal reputation of lies. It is thus important to take a look at Hagari’s previous claims and lies:
The Washington Post titled,
The case of al-Shifa: Investigating the assault on Gaza’s largest hospital
The claims were remarkably specific — that five hospital buildings were directly involved in Hamas activities; that the buildings sat atop underground tunnels that were used by militants to direct rocket attacks and command fighters; and that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards. The assertions were backed by “concrete evidence,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said as he laid out the case in an Oct. 27 briefing.
After storming the complex on Nov. 15, the IDF released a series of photographs and videos that it said proved its central point.
“Terrorists came here to command their operations,” Hagari said in a video published Nov. 22, guiding viewers through an underground tunnel, illuminating dark and empty rooms beneath al-Shifa.
But the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center, according to a Washington Post analysis of open-source visuals, satellite imagery and all of the publicly released IDF materials. That raises critical questions, legal and humanitarian experts say, about whether the civilian harm caused by Israel’s military operations against the hospital — encircling, besieging and ultimately raiding the facility and the tunnel beneath it — were proportionate to the assessed threat.
The Post’s analysis shows:
The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.
None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network.
There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.
When asked if more evidence from al-Shifa would be forthcoming, the spokesperson said: “We cannot provide additional information.” On Nov. 24, Israel’s military announced in a statement that it had destroyed the tunnel on the hospital grounds; its forces withdrew soon after.
“Before, I was convinced that [al-Shifa] was where these operations were taking place,” a senior U.S. member of Congress told The Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. But now, he said, “I think there has to be a new level of demonstration. They should have more proof at this point.”
The targeting by a U.S. ally of a compound housing hundreds of sick and dying patients and thousands of displaced people has no precedent in recent decades. The march on al-Shifa caused the hospital’s operations to collapse. As Israeli troops closed in and fighting intensified, fuel ran out, supplies could not enter, and ambulances were unable to collect casualties from the streets.
Before troops entered the complex, doctors dug a mass grave for as many as 180 people, the United Nations said, citing hospital staff.The morgue had long since ceased to function. Several days later, when WHO medics arrived to evacuate those still inside, they said the place of healing had become a “death zone.” At least 40 patients — including four premature babies — died in the days leading up to the raid and its aftermath, the United Nations said.
In the weeks since, other hospitals in Gaza have come under attack in ways that mirror what happened at al-Shifa — making the assault not just a watershed moment in the conflict, but a vital case study in Israel’s adherence to the laws of war.
“It’s blocked and sealed; they know that we were going to come here more than a month ago, and sealed it,” Hagari said in one video.
The Post mapped the path of the tunnel by geolocating the excavation sites within al-Shifa and analyzing the videos frame-by-frame to determine the network’s directionality and length. The Post then superimposed the tunnel routes on the original map released by the IDF on Oct. 27 that it said showed the full extent of Hamas’s command and control infrastructure.
None of the five buildings highlighted by the IDF appear to connect to the tunnels, and no evidence has been produced showing that the tunnels could be accessed from inside the hospital wards, as Hagari had claimed.
In one section beneath the surgery building, two small bathrooms, a sink and two empty rooms are joined to the tunnel. Hagari said the rooms and the tunnel drew their electricity, water and air conditioning from al-Shifa. One room, Hagari said, was an “operational room,” he said, citing the electric wiring as evidence
The bare, white-tiled rooms showed no immediate evidence of use — for command and control or otherwise. There are no signs of recent habitation, including litter, food containers, clothing or other personal items.
“This room was evacuated, and all the gear was evacuated. I guess it was evacuated when they knew or understand that we were going to enter Shifa Hospital,” Hagari said in the video.
He did not elaborate on when militants were known to be operating in the tunnel or when their alleged departure took place. The IDF did not respond to requests for clarification.
“If you don’t end up finding what you said you were going to find, that justifies skepticism as to whether or not your assessment of military value in conducting the operation was legitimate,” said Geoffrey Corn, a law professor at Texas Tech University and a former senior law of war adviser to the U.S. Army. “It’s certainly not conclusive. The ultimate question is whether the assessment of military advantage was reasonable under the circumstances.”
In a Nov. 18 statement, Hamas described claims about its use of al-Shifa as part of a “campaign of blatant lies.” Officials have not responded to a request for comment on the group’s alleged use of the tunnels.
The following day, the IDF published an additional piece of evidence: security camera footage showing armed militants leading two hostages through the hospital on Oct. 7 — among some 240 captured during the assault on southern Israel. One appeared to be wounded and is on a gurney. It was not clear if the hostages were taken to the hospital for medical treatment or other purposes.
Hostage-taking is a crime under international law. But “misuse of the hospital five weeks before the IDF operation does not bear on the legality of the IDF operation,” Haque said.
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