Late on Tuesday night, about a week after the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) encircled Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, Israeli forces entered the complex in what has been described as a ‘targeted operation against Hamas’. IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that troops are operating specifically within the western area of the hospital, one of the largest medical facilities in Gaza.
The IDF’s military operation within the hospital, and other hospitals in Gaza, has been a highly contentious issue in the international community. The US – Israel’s closest ally – declared that Israel operate with extreme care in hospitals, making sure that patients and staff do not get caught in the crossfire.
Targeting Hamas’s command centres and storage facilities is pivotal to successfully bringing their rule of Gaza to a close
According to international humanitarian law, hospitals get special protections during wars. However, they lose these protections if they are used by combatants to store weapons or hide fighters. Israel has been gathering evidence to show that Hamas has been using Gazan hospitals to do just that.
On Tuesday, the IDF published evidence that Hamas has been operating a command centre, and may have been holding abducted Israeli hostages, at Rantisi children’s hospital in Gaza. Footage showed a weapons arsenal, entry points into underground tunnels allegedly used by Hamas and evidence that people, including babies, were held, possibly tied up, in a concealed room inside the hospital.
In past wars or military operations, Israel has tended to release limited information and rarely allowed reporters from international media outlets to accompany troops. This has previously limited Israel’s ability to control the narrative and explain its actions. Images of ruined buildings and high death tolls among civilians without context and evidence to explain why certain buildings and neighbourhoods were being bombed damaged Israel’s international image and its efforts to gain legitimacy for its operations.
The current war against Hamas has claimed more than 10,000 Palestinian lives, including thousands of children, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza. Casualties will continue to mount. The war has caused a humanitarian crisis and large-scale devastation that involves attacking otherwise protected buildings, such as hospitals, schools and mosques.
For Israel to carry on for as long as it takes to achieve its goals, it is not only fighting a war against Hamas, but also one for international public support and legitimacy. In its efforts to do so, it has allowed reporters to enter Gaza despite the very real risk to life. It also allowed foreign reporters and politicians to visit the Israeli towns that Hamas attacked on 7 October, and showed them evidence of Hamas’s war crimes, including gruesome footage of brutal killings and rapes.
Israel has also been open about the support it has offered Palestinians. It has delivered fuel, incubators, medical supplies and baby food to al-Shifa hospital and has agreed to a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to escape northern Gaza. It has shown alleged evidence of Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields and of how it stores large amounts of fuel, food and other supplies for itself while the civilian population are suffering severe shortages. In explaining why it has to fight a terror organisation that launched an attack that started the war, Israel’s PR machine has gone all out.
Prior to the invasion of al-Shifa, the IDF had produced evidence claiming that Hamas has been operating from within, and directly underneath, the hospital. The Biden administration also confirmed yesterday that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use hospitals, including al-Shifa, for military purposes. A White House spokesperson added that ‘patients must be protected’.
Despite its support, America is not interested in seeing images of carnage from within the hospital and is concerned about civilian casualties. Canadian prime minister Justine Trudeau and French president Emmanuel Macron have also both recently expressed concern with the killing of Palestinian civilians – including babies – despite their support for Israel. Although both have said this in part due to domestic pressures, it shows that Israel’s efforts to justify its actions have only been partially successful.
Israeli soldiers have been advancing slowly within the hospital, both due to the danger posed by terrorists operating within the hospital complex, and the bombs they have planted inside, and in order to avoid harm to staff and patients. Although many of the patients were evacuated from the hospital before IDF forces entered, some 700 could not be moved, according to the hospital’s management.
Targeting Hamas’s major command centres and weapons storage facilities, many of which Israel say have been concealed under hospitals and schools, is pivotal to successfully bringing Hamas’s rule of Gaza to a close and diminish its threat to Israel. This is unlikely, therefore, to be the last such Israeli operation in the Gaza strip.
Comments