It is very distressing to be living in a world where we have endless proof of Hamas’s war crimes and actions, yet people still find ways to question and doubt the legitimacy of Israel’s response to defend itself and fight a terror group.
The IDF has provided endless evidence of Hamas embedding itself in hospitals and using them as military bases and weapons storage facilities, and still, the BBC airs a segment that attempts to cast doubt on the proof, instead of expressing outrage over the weapons that its correspondents found in a Gaza hospital.
Anyone paying attention to the news surrounding the Hamas-Israel war has been hearing a lot about Al Shifa Hospital.
Dar al-Shifa, meaning “house of healing” in Arabic, is one of Gaza’s most prominent and best hospitals, situated in the northern Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. The site was a British Army barracks where in 1946 the British, governors of the area known as Mandatory Palestine, built a quarantine center for those suffering from febrile diseases.
After the 1948 War of Independence (in which the combined armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq attacked the newly established State of Israel) Egypt administered the Gaza Strip and turned it into a proper hospital. After the 1967 Israeli victory in the Six Day War (in which, on intelligence from Israeli spy Eli Cohen in Syria, Israel preempted the Egyptian airforce waiting to strike – and in which Egypt was joined by Jordan and Syria) Israel expanded and reconstructed the hospital in the 1980s as part of a coexistence project.
After Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, things changed.
Hamas in control
As cited by Human Rights Watch, during the Fatah-Hamas conflict in June 2007, Fatah and Hamas clashed at the hospital, killing members of each other’s organizations. Some injured people brought to the hospital were killed by Hamas terrorists once they were inside. A report from the British Medical Journal in 2007 stated that doctors at Al Shifa revealed that “The medical staff are suffering from fear and terror, particularly of the Hamas fighters, who are in every corner of the hospital.”
Hamas eventually fired about 600 doctors affiliated with Fatah, threatening to shoot them if they returned to the hospital.
After this, Al Shifa became a focal point during the Israel-Gaza wars as most media coverage started to come from correspondents reporting from the hospital. Israel had begun to warn the public of evidence that Hamas was using the hospital as their military base and warned that Hamas terrorists hide in hospitals.
Amnesty International confirmed this, reporting in 2015 that “some were interrogated and tortured while otherwise ill-treated within the grounds of Gaza’s main al Shifa hospital. At least three people arrested during the conflict, accused of collaboration, died in custody.”
The Washington Post reported that “the hospital in Gaza City has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas terrorists who can be seen in the hallways and offices.”
Even the Palestinian Health Ministry (not to be conflated with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Health Ministry) accused Hamas of using parts of the hospital as a detention and torture center and withholding medical care.
PBS even aired a documentary in 2006 featuring Hamas terrorists patrolling the halls of Shifa Hospital.
If all of this still seems far-fetched, in the first couple weeks of Israel’s war with Hamas after the October 7 massacre, the IDF released footage of Hamas interrogations of terrorists caught within Israel’s borders who flat-out admit that Hamas terrorists hide in Al Shifa.
The reality is that Hamas is definitely embedding itself inside Al Shifa hospital, which is why the IDF had created a safe-passage corridor to extract patients from the hospital and announced that it would launch a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area of the hospital. IDF spokespersons have reported that every couple of nights, Hamas officials show up at the hospital and fill up on fuel as if it’s a gas station (which inevitably is used for their terror activity).
AT THE start of the operation, the IDF brought fuel, humanitarian aid, incubators, water, and food to the patients at Al Shifa to assist in the humanitarian crisis that Hamas manufactured. That didn’t stop the defamation against Israel from the BBC, which misquoted a Reuters report about Israel targeting “medical staff and Arabic speakers.” They later apologized and clarified that what they should have stated was Israel entered the hospital with “medical staff and Arabic speakers”).
And as the IDF gets deeper into Al Shifa, more and more proof comes to the surface.
Uncovered evidence
The IDF troops exposed a 55-meter-long terror tunnel 10 meters deep underneath the Al Shifa Hospital complex. The tunnel shaft consists of a blast-proof door and a firing hole meant to block Israeli forces from entering the command centers and the underground areas belonging to Hamas.
Even more frightening, the IDF released surveillance camera footage from Shifa Hospital from October 7 revealing Hamas terrorists forcibly bringing in a Nepali and Thai citizen whom Hamas abducted from Israel. One of the victims is seen on a stretcher while hospital staff stand by and watch Hamas bring them in. An IDF’s stolen vehicles can also be seen inside the Shifa Hospital area.
The IDF also tragically revealed that they found evidence that Noa Marciano, an IDF soldier who was kidnapped and forced to film a “hostage video,” was murdered in the basement of Shifa (although Hamas pushed the lie that she died from an IDF airstrike).
One thing is abundantly clear here: Hamas is using a hospital for their terror operations. This is a violation of international law and something we can only expect from a genocidal terror organization.
The world should be screaming, but instead, outlets like BBC are fabricating ways to discredit the evidence, and organizations such as Human Rights Watch or the Red Cross not only remain silent but are complicit bystanders in Hamas crimes.
The truth is that we can show all the proof until we are blue in the face, but in the end, those who turn a blind eye to Hamas’s war crimes have already made up their minds about the value of Jewish life.
The writer is a social media activist with over 10 years of experience working for Israeli and Jewish causes and cause-based NGOs. She is co-founder and COO of Social Lite Creative, a digital marketing firm specializing in geopolitics.