https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-11-15-23/index.html
- Israeli forces are raiding Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, in what the military says is a “precise and targeted operation.” A journalist there said tanks had entered the hospital courtyard and troops were searching buildings and interrogating young men.
- Israel has claimed the hospital includes a Hamas command center, an allegation denied by hospital officials and Hamas. CNN cannot verify either side’s claims. Hundreds of patients and staff remain inside Al-Shifa, according to hospital officials.
The Israelis are so sure about the location of the Hamas bunker, however, not because they are trying to score propaganda points, or because it has been repeatedly mentioned in passing by Western reporters—but because they built it. Back in 1983, when Israel still ruled Gaza, they built a secure underground operating room and tunnel network beneath Shifa hospital—which is one among several reasons why Israeli security sources are so sure that there is a main Hamas command bunker in or around the large cement basement beneath the area of Building 2 of the Hospital, which reporters are obviously prohibited from entering.
Top Secret Hamas Command Bunker in Gaza Revealed—And Why Reporters Won’t Talk About It – Tablet Magazine
The 2014 article from Tablet Magazine, a reputable source, reveals that one of Hamas’ main command bunkers is located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Despite being a poorly kept secret, this fact hasn’t been prominently reported by journalists. As of 2014, the location served as a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders and has been acknowledged by some reporters, including William Booth of the Washington Post, and even featured in a PBS documentary.
However, the information is often buried deep within articles, leading to speculation about why this isn’t headline news. One reason could be that the primary sources confirming the bunker’s location are Israelis, who critics might argue have a vested interest in painting Hamas in a negative light. However, Israeli confidence in the bunker’s location comes from the fact they built an underground operating room and tunnel network beneath the hospital in 1983, when Israel still ruled Gaza.
Hamas has no interest in this information becoming widely known as it would confirm its use of civilians as human shields. To control the narrative, Hamas imposes strict reporting rules at Shifa Hospital, prohibiting images of armed Hamas members or access to certain areas. Journalists who fail to comply risk serious repercussions, including interrogation and threats.
The article concludes by suggesting that editors bear responsibility for highlighting the pressures under which correspondents operate and the censorship they face, arguing that without such context, news from such zones can veer into propaganda.
What if?
2023.11.15: So, we can understand why the IDF has decided to raid the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, although Hamas would have probably had enough time to relocate within the tunnel network beneath the hospital built by Israel in 1983.
However, it’s irrelevant if the Shifa Hospital structure still hides underground the current headquarters of Hamas. Even if it does, nothing justifies the cruelty to civilian patients without access to anesthesia, food and water, and the sentencing to death of innocent babies, left without incubators in the hospital’s intensive care unit, to accomplish the military objective of crushing terrorists. Convicting hospital staff of complicity would require a trial by jury, not a summary death sentence, in any civilized society.
A crime of war does not justify retaliation with another crime of war. Furthermore, what if the IDF comes out with nothing but propaganda from the raid? Who would secure the integrity of the evidence? Who would believe them if they found just weapons and evidence allegedly not planted by them? Another Iraq-like fiasco?
The only believable evidence would be rescuing civilians kidnapped in the October 7 terrorist attack. And even then, the moral question would still stand: why are their lives more valuable than the innocents civilians killed in collective punishment to rescue the hostages? Couldn’t they have been rescued by a ceasefire and hostage negotiations?
Israelis must call it a draw (stalemate, ceasefire), negotiate the exchange of hostages and prisoners of war, and return to the negotiating table — as equals with Palestinians — in a territorial dispute to be adjudicated by the international community. That’s a rational solution for a lasting peace in the Middle East. Regressing to the Code of Hammurabi to appease Jehovah’s wrath — the antithesis of God’s love — is not the way to a future peace.
https://hierarchicaldemocracy.wordpress.com/2023/11/14/stalemate-in-the-middle-east/
2023.11.16:
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.
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 Israeli operations in Gaza.
The war began on Oct. 7, after Hamas led a terrorist attack on Israel, killing an estimated 1,200 people and kidnapping roughly 240 others, according to Israeli officials. In the 40 days since, Israel’s counterattack — by air, sea and land — has killed more than 11,000 people in Gaza, including more than 4,600 children, according to health officials in Gaza.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/world/middleeast/al-shifa-hospital-israel.html
About three-quarters of Democrats and half of Republicans in the poll supported the idea of a ceasefire, putting them at odds with Joe Biden, who has rebuffed calls from Arab leaders, including Palestinians, to pressure Israel into a ceasefire.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/15/poll-us-israel-support-hamas-war
2023.11.18:
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