In what it calls a “targeted operation” against Hamas, Israel raided Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital complex early Wednesday, November 15, 2023.
Israeli forces entered the facility’s emergency department while tanks were stationed in the yard of the medical complex. They also searched the basement of the hospital.
The raid comes just hours after White House spokesman, John Kirby told reporters, without providing evidence, that Washington has “information” that Hamas is using Gaza hospitals, including al-Shifa.
Thousands have taken shelter at al-Shifa, the largest medical complex in the Strip.
Hamas rejected the U.S claims and reiterated its call “for the United Nations to establish an international committee to inspect all hospitals in Gaza” to refute Israel’s claims.
Moreover, Hamas said that it holds Israel and U.S President Biden fully responsible for the implications of the raiding of al-Shifa hospital by Israeli forces, calling the move a “barbaric crime against a medical facility protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
“The Israeli occupation and everyone who colluded with it to kill children, patients and innocent civilians will be held accountable,” the group said in a statement.
“The White House and Pentagon’s adoption of the false Israeli narrative claiming that the resistance uses the al-Shifa Medical Centre for military reasons constituted a green light for [Israel] to commit more massacres against civilians, and to forcibly remove them from the north to the south to continue the occupation’s plan of displacing our people.”
Hamas
The UN noted in its latest situation report that Israel’s military operations in Gaza City and the surrounding of hospitals, coupled with the severe lack of fuel in the Palestinian enclave, has halted the work of ambulances and rescue teams in the city.
The UN disclosed that for the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza was unable to update the overall casualty figures due to the collapse of communications and services at Palestinian-run hospitals.
The Gaza death toll, last updated on November 10, 2023, then stood at 11,078 Palestinians killed in Gaza, including 4,506 children and 3,027 women.
Israeli forces also carried out another series of raids in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.
Raids were reported in the village of Tal, southwest of Nablus, as well as in Jenin in the north, el-Bireh near Ramallah, and west of Hebron in the south.
No Proof Of Israel’s Claim
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, told a news agency that “the Israeli government has put forward no evidence that would justify stripping hospitals of their special protections under international humanitarian law.”
Shakir noted that even if Israel’s justifications for attacking hospitals are taken at “face value,” “international humanitarian law only allows attacking hospitals if room is made for safe evacuation.”
He added, “The reality here is there is no safe place to go in Gaza.”
Shakir also said that there is a higher risk of attacks on hospitals being “disproportionate” considering that “even a relatively minor attack could have life-altering consequences for the treatment of patients.”
Human Rights Watch has investigated attacks on or near five healthcare facilities in Gaza between October 7 and November 7, 2023.
In an interview, Ardi Imseis, an international law expert at Queens University in Canada, stressed that Israel carries the burden to “produce evidence” and prove its claim that the hospital has been used by Hamas as a base.
Making reference to the hospital, Imseis said, “the object of the attack is a civilian object. Until such time that the Israelis provide proof that it has been converted into a military object, the civilian nature of the object does not change.”
Imseis pointed out that so far, Israel has not offered any evidence to prove its claim.
READ ALSO: Erdogan Calls Israel A Terrorist State
