Israel/U.S. Lied: Probe Dismantles Israeli Defense Force Al-Shifa Hospital Claim
A Washington Post investigation found Israel's evidence "falls short" of showing that Hamas used the facility as a command center.
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
"Turns out the Shifa hospital wasn't a Hamas headquarters. Turns out the Israelis lied. Turns out the Biden administration and U.S. intelligence were wrong."
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams (12/23/23)
The Israeli military launched a deadly assault on Gaza's largest hospital last month on the grounds that the facility concealed a sprawling Hamas command center.
But a detailed Washington Post investigation published Thursday found that the evidence Israel has presented in support of its claim "falls short" of demonstrating that Hamas used the al-Shifa Hospital Complex for any significant military operations.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who repeated the Israeli government's claim about al-Shifa, has not released any evidence to support the assertions.
"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 Post noted.
But the newspaper's examination of material released by the Israel Defense Forces, satellite imagery, and open-source visuals did not turn up anything resembling the "concrete evidence" that the IDF promised.
"Turns out the Shifa hospital wasn't a Hamas headquarters. Turns out the Israelis lied," MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan wrote in response to the investigation. "Turns out the Biden administration and U.S. intelligence were wrong."
"Who'd have guessed," he added sarcastically. "Well, a lot of us."
According to the Post:
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.
Israel's raids on al-Shifa sparked international alarm, with United Nations officials warning at the time that the IDF's attack would put the lives of patients, healthcare workers, and displaced people at severe risk. Dozens of people—including several newborns—died during and following the IDF raids.
Lacking evidence
Hospitals are protected under international law, with military attacks on them prohibited unless they are used to "commit an act harmful to the enemy."
The Post's probe indicates that Israel has not produced nearly enough evidence to justify stripping al-Shifa of its protected status.
"Less than 24 hours after Israeli forces entered the complex, the IDF released video footage showing spokesman Jonathan Conricus walking through the radiology unit. Behind an MRI machine, he points out what he calls a 'grab bag' containing an AK-style rifle and an ammunition magazine," the Post reported. "Photos released by the military later that day purported to show the full haul of weapons recovered at the hospital—about 12 AK-style rifles, in addition to magazines of ammunition and several grenades and bulletproof vests."
"The Post was unable to independently verify to whom the weapons belonged or how they came to be inside the radiology unit," the newspaper added.
The BBC also scrutinized the video footage released by the IDF and similarly concluded that the evidence didn't match the Israeli government's description of al-Shifa as an "operational command center for Hamas."
The Post went on to analyze IDF visuals "showing the entrance to a tunnel shaft in a northeast corner of the hospital complex near the specialty surgery building," which was seen as a potential sign of Hamas activity below al-Shifa.
But after mapping the path of the tunnel and comparing the tunnel routes to an IDF map purporting to detail Hamas' command center infrastructure, the Post found that "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."
"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," Geoffrey Corn, a law professor at Texas Tech University and a former senior law of war adviser to the U.S. Army, told the Post. "It's certainly not conclusive. The ultimate question is whether the assessment of military advantage was reasonable under the circumstances."
War on healthcare system
Al-Shifa is one of a number of Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces have attacked since October as part of what one U.N. official described as the IDF's "unrelenting war" on the territory's healthcare system.
Just nine of Gaza's 36 hospitals are still functioning. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said Friday that northern Gaza currently has "no functional hospital."
"WHO will keep striving to supply health facilities in northern Gaza. But without medicines and other essential needs, all patients will die slowly and painfully," said Tedros. "More than ever, a humanitarian cease-fire is needed now to reinforce and restock remaining health facilities, deliver medical services needed by thousands of injured people and those needing other essential care, and, above all, to stop the bloodshed and death."
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U.S./Israeli Targeted Killing Of Journalists & Families In Gaza 'Unparalleled,' Says Watchdog
The Committee to Protect Journalists—which recorded 68 media professionals killed since October 7—said it is particularly concerned by Israel's "apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families."
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams (12/22/23)
Journalists are being slain during Israel's current assault on Gaza at a rate unseen in modern history—with more killed in the last 10 weeks alone than have been killed in any country in any whole year since records began, the Committee to Protect Journalists revealed on Thursday.
CPJ said that at least 68 media professionals—61 Palestinians, four Israelis, and three Lebanese—have been killed since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the Israeli military's retaliatory obliteration of the Gaza Strip.
Of particular concern to CPJ is Israel's "apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families."
"In at least one case, a journalist was killed while clearly wearing press insignia in a location where no fighting was taking place," the group said. "In at least two other cases, journalists reported receiving threats from Israeli officials and IDF officers before their family members were killed."
Killing of families
In October, Al Jazeera reporter and Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh found out during a live broadcast that his wife, son, daughter, and grandson had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Additionally, CPJ said 15 journalists have been injured—some seriously, like Agence France-Presse photojournalist Christina Assi, whose legs were blown off while she and a group of journalists were covering cross-border clashes between Israel and the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah.
At least 20 media professionals have also been arrested and others have reported being abused by Israeli troops—including one CNN Türk photojournalist who was assaulted during a live broadcast. Three other journalists are missing.
"The concentration of journalists killed in the Israel-Gaza war is unparalleled in CPJ's history and underscores how grave the situation is for press on the ground," CPJ president Jodie Ginsberg said Thursday.
Suppressing information
CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program coordinator Sherif Mansour asserted that "with every journalist killed, the war becomes harder to document and to understand."
Some critics say that's the point—and the same reason that Israel denies permission for foreign journalists to report from Gaza.
"They don't want us to see the truth. That's why they're taking out the journalists," U.S. journalist Abby Martin toldMiddle East Eye earlier this month.
After Israeli forces killed Lebanese Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdallah in an attack that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called "apparently deliberate," Ziad Makary, Lebanon's information minister, asserted that "it is in the military strategy of Israel to kill journalists so that they kill the truth."
Previous probes—like the investigation into Israeli troops' 2022 killing of renowned Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh—have confirmed that Israel has deliberately targeted journalists and other civilians in the past.
In May, CPJ published Deadly Pattern, a report that found Israeli troops had killed at least 20 journalists over the past 22 years with utter impunity. While some of the slain journalists have been foreigners—including Italian Associated Press reporter Simone Camilli and British cameraman and filmmaker James Miller—the vast majority of victims have been Palestinian.
Israeli forces have also attacked newsrooms in every major assault on Gaza, including in May 2021 when the 11-story al-Jalaa Tower, which housed offices of Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, and other media outlets, was completely destroyed in an airstrike.
The new CPJ report comes as the death toll from Israel's 77-day war on Gaza topped 20,000, with more than 50,000 other Palestinians maimed or missing. More than 1.9 million of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced, with most of their homes damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment. Gazans are also facing an imminent risk of famine and contagious disease.
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'Disgraceful': US Abstains After Watering Down UN Gaza Resolution
"Biden is effectively running war crimes management for Israel.”
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams (12/22/23)
The United States on Friday abstained from voting on a U.N. Security Council resolution that it repeatedly stonewalled and lobbied to weaken in the face of intense international opposition as Israeli forces continue to kill hundreds of Palestinians daily.
The newly passed resolution—which was introduced by the United Arab Emirates—calls for "urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access."
Thirteen Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution. Russia joined the U.S. in abstaining.
The resolution calls for "urgent steps... for creating the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities," language that's weaker than an earlier draft's call for an "urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities."
"Given the staggering death toll—with more than 20,000 killed in over two months—and the horrifying scale of destruction and devastation in Gaza, this is simply unacceptable." — Agnès Callamard,Head of Amnesty International.
Also removed from the final version was language condemning Israel's indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian civilians, tens of thousands of whom have been killed, wounded, or left missing during 77 days of Israeli onslaught.
The vote came just after Russia proposed an amendment that would have restored language calling for an "immediate cessation of hostilities" to the resolution. The U.S. vetoed the amendment.
‘Disgraceful’
Earlier this month, the U.S. vetoed a separate Security Council resolution calling for a Gaza cease-fire. That resolution was later approved by the U.N. General Assembly in a 153-10 vote.
"It is disgraceful that the U.S. was able to stall and use the threat of its veto power to force the U.N. Security Council to weaken a much-needed call for an immediate end to attacks by all parties," Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard said in a statement.
"This is a much-needed resolution—all efforts to address the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza must be welcomed—but it remains woefully insufficient in the face of the ongoing carnage and extensive destruction wrought by the government of Israel's attacks in the occupied Gaza Strip," Callamard continued. "Nothing short of an immediate cease-fire is enough to alleviate the mass civilian suffering we are witnessing."
"Given the staggering death toll—with more than 20,000 killed in over two months—and the horrifying scale of destruction and devastation in Gaza, this is simply unacceptable," she added.
In a statement giving a "qualified welcome" to the resolution, Mary Robinson—a former U.N. high commissioner for human rights and Irish president who currently chairs The Elders—said: "Agreement on this weak and overdue U.N. Security Council resolution is better than another U.S. veto. But the test of the resolution's success will be how many lives are saved."
"The people of Gaza are facing starvation: they need food, not words," she added. "Neither Hamas nor Israel have complied with the previous resolution agreed last month. If the Security Council is to be credible, its members must push harder for implementation of its decisions."
U.S. support of war crimes
Lamenting that the resolution "became increasingly meaningless" as U.S. President Joe Biden "managed to delete the call for suspension of hostilities," Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said on social media Friday that "Biden's changes will help ensure that Israel's slaughter in Gaza continues while minimizing the U.N.'s insight into what increasingly appears to be a genocide."
"Biden is effectively running war crimes management for Israel," he added.
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"If Israelis don't want to be accused of being like the Nazis, they simply need to stop behaving like Nazis." -- Norman Finkelstein
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CALLING ALL SUBSTACKERS: Use The Right Wording Describing U.S./Israeli War Crimes
Every hospital bombing, every UN refugee center attack, every child ripped apart and every infant found dead and rotting in a hospital — has been facilitated, supplied & diplomatically shielded by the US. We make ALL the war crimes possible. We are the terrorists. ... A CALL TO SUBSTACKERS! Use The Right Language: AMERICAN War Crimes & AMERICAN Genocide In Gaza
"'If Israelis don't want to be accused of being like the Nazis, they simply need to stop behaving like Nazis." -- Norman Finkelstein
They certainly look like Nazis in your cartoon. Excellent work!