I’m not looking forward to the propaganda war that follows this about what was found/wasn’t found there.
Frankly, the IDF is undermining their own credibility by filming their own sucky videos rather than letting independent media embeds report directly.
Israel-Gaza live news: Israeli soldiers ‘storm’ Gaza’s biggest hospital
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67400490
The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza since - of whom more than 4,500 were children
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.
Hmmm. The Haaretz article that Tablet links to says it’s a basement?
The Israeli civil administration in the territories constructed the hospital complex’s Building Number 2, which has a large cement basement that housed the hospital’s laundry and various administrative services.
I can’t find anyone besides Tablet that claims Israel built a secure underground operating room there.
If Israel doesn’t find anything but an empty basement with some subterranean tunnels between the various hospital building basements, this raid becomes completely impossible to justify.
I think I have been to a one hospital complex that didn’t have tunnels between buildings. It had skyways…
I assume that is a given for anyone going into a cabinet led by Netanyahu.
Latest: I got through to a senior doctor in Shifa hospital - Israeli military are still within one department of Shifa, gunfire was sounding in the background. Medics,patients are sheltering as it’s too dangerous to approach the windows or go outside so they can’t see exactly what is going on. This doctor said there are approx. 700 patients, around 700 medics and 2000 displaced still in Shifa - Israeli military warned them at 1am of the impending raid told to stay back from hospital gates, then there were airstrikes and explosions, a half metre hole was blown into one department where soldiers apparently entered. Israeli military told us in a briefing today they engaged in gun battles at the entrance, 4 militants were killed, there is no fighting inside the hospital & they have been questioning individuals within the complex.
Bel Trew is chief international correspondent for the British newspaper the Independent.
Israeli military said its left humanitarian aid outside Shifa gates
With GIANT cartoonish labels in english for a Western press photo op.
A senior Israeli official said that the purpose of the IDF operation at the al-Shifa hospital wasn’t to rescue hostages but to locate and expose a Hamas tunnels hub that connects the hospital with other parts of the Gaza strip
Hence reports of bulldozers with the hospital incursion force. My guess is the next good sat pics we see of the hospital site will show much excavation.
From the Guardian liveblog:
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the al-Shifa hospital has told Al Jazeera that water, electricity and medical oxygen supplies are completely cut off within the hospital, and that he is unable to communicate with doctors throughout the hospital.
He told the news network:
The occupation army is in the dialysis building without bothering to bring fuel to help patients. We cannot reach the pharmacy to treat patients as the occupation shoots everyone who moves. The patients’ wounds began to rot significantly after all services in the hospital stopped. The smell of death wafts everywhere.
It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the accounts coming out of the al-Shifa hospital.
Gaza’s director of hospitals said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday afternoon that some Israeli forces left Al-Shifa Hospital after interrogating people inside for 10 hours, according to two senior hospital staff members who spoke to him.
Evan Hill is a Washington Post reporter.
Statement by Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator
IDF says it found Hamas terror headquaters, weapons, and technological equipment in the MRI building at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. The IDF continues its operations.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “must go now”, and called for the government to be overthrown in a vote of no confidence and to form a government headed by another person from the Likud. In an interview with the Israeli news agency N12 he said that in Israel "we cannot allow ourselves to conduct a prolonged campaign with a prime minister in whom we do not trust.
From the Guardian liveblog:
Seven staff members at Jordanian hospital in Gaza injured in Israeli strike, Jordan says
Seven staff members at the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza have been injured in what Jordan alleges was an Israeli airstrike on the emergency department.
In an interview with CNN, foreign minister Ayman Safadi said:
Our field hospital staff rushed to the emergency section as they saw a number of Palestinians carrying wounded persons, and as our staff got to the emergency room, they got hit again and about seven of our medical staff there were wounded. Many other Palestinians were unfortunately killed and injured.
Safadi said it was “incomprehensible that people trying to offer the medical help to wounded people get hit as well” and said Jordan would demand an investigation into the incident.
Thread on things that are not proof that Hamas was using Al Shifa hospital as a base:
