Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

What reporters aren't telling you about Shifa Hospital: It is Hamas HQ


Cartoon by Peter Brookes, Times of London, 2014


There have been a number of stories about Gaza City's Shifa Hospital and how it is trying to cope with the number of injured

But Shifa isn't only famous for being the biggest hospital in Gaza.

It is known for being the headquarters of Hamas. And this has been well known since at least 2009.

As Tablet wrote in 2014:


The idea that one of Hamas’ main command bunkers is located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is one of the worst-kept secrets of the Gaza war. ...The location is so un-secret that Hamas regularly meets with reporters there. On July 15, for example, William Booth of the Washington Post wrote that the hospital “has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” Back in 2006, PBS even aired a documentary showing how gunmen roam the halls of the hospital, intimidate the staff, and deny them access to protected locations within the building—where the camera crew was obviously prohibited from filming.

What Hamas wants is for reporters to use ... photos of Palestinians killed and wounded by Israelis, which make Palestinians look like innocent victims of wanton Israeli brutality.

To that end, the rules of reporting from Shifa Hospital are easy for any newbie reporter to understand: No pictures of members of Hamas with their weapons inside the hospital, and don’t go anywhere near the bunkers, or the operating rooms where members of Hamas are treated.

...What Hamas has done, therefore, is to turn Shifa Hospital into a Hollywood sound-stage filled with real, live war victims who are used to score propaganda points, while the terrorists inside the hospital itself are erased from photographs and news accounts through a combination of pressure and threats, in order to produce the stories that Hamas wants.

Judging from the coverage in this round, the reporters are sticking to the Hamas playbook perfectly.


Hamas doesn't only hold meetings, treat its members separately, and use the hospital as a command and control center. It has also used it as a launching pad for rockets - something else reporters only rarely would mention out of fear. A Finnish reporter bravely said that she witnessed a rocket launch from there. in 2014: "At two o'clock in the morning from the parking lot located behind the hospital, a rocket was launched. This really happened right here, and the sound was very loud."

She's one of the few exceptions that prove the rule.

When Israel bombed the tunnels under Al Wehda street in 2021, reporters didn't mention that Shifa Hospital is right at the end of the street - meaning, it is a hub or terminal for Hamas' extensive tunnel system, and a bomb aimed at that tunnel could collapse the hospital over the heads of the patients. (Israel actually built the underground bunker at the hospital in 1983 to be a secure location for operating rooms.)

A report by Amnesty International in 2015 said Hamas used a section of the hospital “to detain, interrogate, torture and otherwise ill-treat suspects, even as other parts of the hospital continued to function as a medical centre.”

Shifa Hospital is the paradigm of how Hamas uses human shields and how it endangers civilians. But because Hamas doesn't want reporters to mention that....they almost never do.




 
For the first time since it opened in 1954, on Monday Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) in Jaffa allowed reporters to see and photograph the dead bodies inside.

The stench of death and putrefaction was overwhelming on Abu Kabir’s bottom floor where bodies that await specialized examination and bone fragments are unloaded for DNA extraction or study by anthropologists.

Some of the journalists couldn’t stomach viewing the horrific scenes in the autopsy rooms as the center’s teams worked reverently and professionally, burying their emotions for the moment.

Despite how intensively Abu Kabir’s staff are working as they try to establish the identity of the most degraded remains of the mass-murderous Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, it was felt important to make room in their tight quarters for journalists to document these atrocities for the world to see.


(full article online)



 

All Arab leaders (including Abbas) agree: They'd rather see Palestinians die than do anything to save them. (It is not a new policy.)



Times of Israel reports:

Jordanian King Abdullah II says that neither his country nor Egypt will accept Palestinian refugees, declaring it a “red line.”

At a press conference held after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Abdullah says that “some of the usual suspects are trying to create facts on the ground,” according to Sky News Arabia.

“There will be no refugees in Jordan and no refugees in Egypt.”
Why not, exactly?

Jordan took in 1.3 million refugees from Syria. About half are in camps and the rest live in the cities. It wasn't happy about the situation, but Abdullah certainly didn't draw a "red line" against them.

Egypt, similarly, has taken in - equally reluctantly - hundreds of thousands of refugees from Sudan, Syria, and elsewhere.
But even though both those countries accepted Syrian refugees, they didn't treat them all the same.

Jordan turned away many Syrian refugees - if they were of Palestinian origin. It didn't allow the ones who came earlier to live in the same refugee camps that they set up By policy, Palestinian Syrians were treated like garbage.
Egypt gave rights to Syrian refugees - but not if they were considered Palestinian. Palestinians who arrived via air were immediately sent back to Syria.

For decades, the Arab world pretended that they cared about Palestinians, but when it came to actual living Palestinians, they not only refused to help - they actively worked to deny them help.

They always wanted Palestinians to be cannon fodder against Israel and nothing more.
Clueless world leaders and diplomats never even commented on this official discrimination against Palestinians. The Arab leaders would say how central the Palestinian issue was to them while they mistreated the ones under their control.

Now, it is happening again, in broad daylight: Arab leaders refuse to save Palestinian lives, because they have great propaganda value when they are dead, but they are merely an expense when they are alive.
If you look at Jordan's reporting of the meeting, Abdullah adds something interesting:

His Majesty reaffirmed rejection of attempts to forcibly displace the Palestinians and cause theirinternal displacement, stressing that such attempts would plunge the region into another disaster and a new cycle of violence and destruction.
"Internal displacement" includes moving them to the West Bank.



Israel has always resisted moving Gazans to the West Bank, but I haven't seen anyone talk about this option today. Certainly there has been no word from the Palestinian Authority offering to save some Gazans for the duration of the war - even though they wouldn't become refugees, they would still be in "Palestine," and there is a lot more room in Areas A and B than in Gaza.

But here too, the example of Syria is instructive. Because Abbas had the opportunity to save some Palestinian Syrians, and he said he'd rather see them dead because Israel would ask them to renounce "return."

These examples prove as much as possible that the entire purpose of the Palestinian cause is not to help Palestinians but to use them as a weapon against Israel. They have been pawns for 75 years of the Arab leaders, including their own leaders, with no one actually caring about them even as they insisted that they were the most important issue.

The cynicism is obvious to anyone who bothers to look. But the world media and the Western world simply doesn't want to accept that Palestinians are hated so much by their own Arab brethren and by their own leaders.

If there is another explanation for why Palestinians have been singled out and treated worse than every other Arab, refugee or otherwise, by Arab leaders, I sure haven't seen it.



 
An Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip Tuesday afternoon killed the head of Hamas’s Central Gaza Brigade, a very senior commander in the terror organization, the military and Hamas said.

Ayman Nofal was also a member of the organization’s General Military Council. He was killed in a strike in the Bureij refugee camp.

The IDF said the airstrike was carried out following intelligence efforts by the Shin Bet security agency and Military Intelligence Directorate.


(full article online)


 
28 Israeli villages being evacuated because of increased Hezbollah attacks .

Well done Israel . Really smart with your big mouth threats and Bully Boy shouting .
You are about to set off a lot of Allahu Akbar Freedom Fighters who are very upset young men .
 
Abbas’ advisor:

  • “Once Israel comes to an end, there will be no violence and bloodshed”
  • If not for this occupation (i.e., Israel's existence) there would be no tensions, violence, and fear from any side... what we’re doing is self-defense”
  • “We are in an open confrontation” with Israel on “every inch of the Palestinian land (i.e., all of Israel)”


The following are two recent statements anticipating Israel’s destruction:


1. “Once Israel leaves the region, the gates will open to a resolution of all the problems in the region."



2. “Once Israel comes to an end, there will be no violence and bloodshed.”



Whose ideology is this?



The first was said by Hamas Political Bureau Member Osama Hamdan, the second by PA Chairman Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash.



The strikingly similar statements were made following Hamas’ terror atrocities against Israelis last Saturday, when Hamas terrorists murdered over 1,300 Israelis, wounded over 3,300, and took at least 199 Israelis hostage, among them women, children, elderly and even infants:

Hamas Political Bureau member Osama Hamdan: “There is one ‘no’ – no to Israel’s existence. No to Israel’s existence.And I think that Israel is the problem in our region, and that once Israel leaves the region, the gates will open to a resolution of all the problems in the region.”
[Al-Jadeed TV (Lebanon), Oct. 11, 2023]​
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Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “[Israel] doesn’t want to understand that the cause of everything is the occupation’s (i.e., Israel's) existence. Once the occupation (i.e., Israel) comes to an end there will be no violence or bloodshed from any side. As long as the occupation exists, they must understand that they have no hope of living securely and safely... For more than seven decades already (i.e., since Israel's establishment in 1948) the Palestinian people has been in this situation and wants to be rid of the occupation and achieve its freedom, honor, and state.”
[PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page,
Oct. 9, 2023]​
A decade ago, Palestinian Media Watch exposed that the same advisor to Abbas, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, preached that Islam requires Israel’s destruction as a religious obligation:



The similarities between Hamas and the PA are not new to anyone who has been following PMW. PMW has exposed the PA and Hamas’ shared values: Both promote identical death/blood worship, and share the same children’s education, and believe working to destroy Israel is a requirement of Islam.



Palestinian Media Watch has also documented extensively that the PA and Fatah support the recent massacre. Prominent among the supporters is Abbas’ advisor Al-Habbash who is posting hate speech supporting the massacre and calling for the end of Israel on his Facebook page:

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PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “We are in an open confrontation with this occupation in one arena of struggle that stretches from Jerusalem to the West Bank, Jenin, Hebron, the Gaza Strip, every inch of the Palestinian land. We are standing against one occupation in one arena.”
[PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 10, 2023]
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PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: If not for this occupation (i.e., Israel) there would be no tensions, violence, and fear from any side, and there would be no bloodshed. The occupation is the cause of all the disasters. Israel claims that it is defending itself, but that’s the opposite. Israel is the one that is attacking and we are the ones who are defending ourselves, and it is our right to defend ourselves. It is the Palestinian people’s right to use all means of self-defense as is anchored in the international laws. The occupation is the aggression, the occupation is the terror, and we are the victims of this aggression and this terror, and what we are doing is nothing more than self-defense against this Israeli terrorism.

[PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 9, 2023]
PMW reported that Al-Habbash already justified the Hamas massacre of Israelis as the Palestinian “legitimate right to defend ourselves” and that “the Martyrs’ blood will cause victory and holiness to bloom.”


 
The Hamas Interior Ministry announced that 14 members of Haniyeh’s family were killed in an IDF attack Tuesday afternoon on the family home in Gaza City, including his son, Hazem Ismail Haniyeh.

The younger Haniyeh had obtained permission to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing in July 2022 together with his wife and two children to join other members of the family in Turkey. Nevertheless, the terrorist leader’s son has since ontinued to travel in and out of the enclave.

The elder Haniyeh has been enjoying the high life in his upscale office in Doha, Qatar, where he was seen shortly after the October 7 invasion of Israel by Hamas operatives, celebrating the slaughter, torture, and abduction of more than a thousand Jewish civilians.




 

All those who question the unimaginable savagery of the Hamas attack against Israel must read the words of these forensic scientists struggling to identify the 297 bodies so brutalised as to be unrecognisable​



(full article online )


 
The Regavim Movement publicized a catalog of official Palestinian Authority expressions of support for Hamas, including calls for donations, encouragement for Hamas terrorists, and calls for active participation in confrontations with Israeli civilians and troops.

Additional proof of Palestinian support for Hamas atrocities, drawn from Palestinian social media, includes footage of Fatah militants participating in the battles in Israel’s Gaza border communities and “selfies” of Fatah militants showing off spoils of war, ransacking and looting.

There is also an official PA spokesperson’s statement, aired on Israel’s Channel 11: “We do not condemn any side, and if it is necessary that we condemn anyone, that would be the only democratic state in the Middle East.”

Regavim also shared a Palestinian Authority Religious Endowments Office document calling on imams to use their Friday sermons to call for all forms of support for Hamas’s activities in Gaza.

As visual documentation of the horrors of the massacre carried out at the Nova Festival, in the Jewish communities of the Gaza Envelope, and along southern Israeli highways began to circulate on digital and world media outlets, politicians and media commentators in Israel and around the world began to fully internalize and express the equation Hamas is ISIS, in an attempt to expose the inhuman cruelty perpetrated by Hamas and to make it clear that the murderous terror attack of October 7 was not merely an expression of a localized conflict or the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process,” but an illustration of the threat of radical Islam that threatens the entire world.

The video below shows Abbas Zaki, a senior member of Fatah, acknowledging and admiring the Hamas fighters for the murderous attack, claiming that they are “our brothers, who are all part of the resistance.” Later in the same video, Regavim added a medley of images of Fatah fighters showing off the loot they collected after the battle in Kibbutz Kisufim in the Gaza envelope on October 7.

For a rich archive of PA and other Arab propaganda videos, check out Palestinian Media Watch.

“We must not enable the ‘Hamas are the bad guys and the PA are the good guys’ narrative,” says Meir Deutsch, Director General of Regavim. “The Palestinian Authority’s repeated declarations of unwavering support for Hamas demands that we wake up before the Arabs of Judea and Samaria give repeat performances of the Simchat Torah Massacre all over Israel.”

Deutsch adds: “For years, official policy has held that peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria and with Hamas in Gaza are attainable through economic considerations, work permits for Gazan laborers, and financial support of the PA and Hamas. This policy has failed miserably, and we have paid for this folly in blood. The Palestinians have exploited this policy to build a terrorist state and to improve and expand their terror capabilities. This is precisely what happened in Gaza. We can no longer rely on these failed concepts that have formed the core of Israel’s policy. Economic incentives feed the beast of terrorism, and Israel’s territorial concessions and political incentives have proven to be nothing less than suicidal.”




 
The level three basement carpark in northern Israel's Rambam hospital is usually what it is called -- a place for people to leave their vehicles.

But in 30 hours this week, staff transformed the cavernous space into a huge underground hospital, equipping it with 1,300 beds, complete with fittings for oxygen, medical and sanitary supplies.

Israel is in the midst of a war to "crush" Hamas, after the Palestinian Islamists stormed its southern border at the weekend, shooting dead more than 1,200 people in the streets and in their homes.


Israel has since been pounding Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, where 1,537 people have been killed.

Located in Haifa, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the border with Lebanon, Rambam hospital readied the underground facility as Israel has also traded cross-border fire with Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions in Lebanon since Sunday.

It was in fact a 2006 war with Hezbollah which had prompted the hospital to come up with its dual-use idea.

At that time, 400 rockets rained down around the hospital, said anaesthetist Philippe Abecassis, 62.

Patients were then moved down to the cellar which was bare, with the ground still covered in sand.

The hospital, which had already began digging works for an underground carpark, then had "this idea, that if war were to return -- and unfortunately in the 75 years of Israel's existence, we know that war returns -- we could use this parking as an underground hospital," said Abecassis.

- 'Sanctuaries' -

Engineers and architects then worked to design a space in the basement where three levels of parking space could be easily switched into a treatment centre.

"The facility has three floors. Every floor is over 20,000 square metres. On regular days, it is a parking lot and in emergency, it becomes the biggest underground hospital in the world of 2,000 beds," said Michael Halberthal, director general of the Rambam hospital.

Sockets, pipes and other essential fittings are usually concealed.

But in times of crises, like this week, they quickly came into use as hospital staff brought in the beds and other medical equipment.

During AFP's visit on Thursday, basement three was already set up, with large fabric conduits pumping air conditioning into the large space.

Monitors are plugged in. Showers, sinks, toilets linked to water supplies, and sewage connections also fitted.

Cables between cubicles allow oxygen supplies to flow in, or for human secretions to be pumped out.

The 1,300 beds were in place, complete with clean sheets and blankets.

Works were ongoing in basement level two, where 700 beds will be installed.

And basement level one, where cars were still parked on Thursday, could be turned into a decontamination room and a triage area in case of a chemical attack.

Four operating theatres are planned underground, in addition to the 14 existing in the aboveground levels, where construction has been fortified in case of bombings.

"I never thought I'd see this time in my career. But well, there we are," Abecassis said, sighing.

For the doctor, even having to take such a measure to protect patients is "philosophically very difficult to understand" as "hospitals should be sanctuaries".

- 'Can't count on luck' -

But health establishments are not always spared.

On Wednesday, a rocket struck a hospital in southern Israel's Ashkelon city, without killing anyone.

"We can't count on luck," said Halberthal, director of Rambam hospital.

"We are waiting, depending on the development in the north. But if we will need to bring down the patients, within eight hours, all the patients will be over here.

"So all the patients, the staff, everything is totally protected. And we continue with regular medical activities."

The hospital also has food, petrol, oxygen and medical supplies enabling it to be self-sufficient for three days, said Halberthal, who hoped the underground hospital would not have to be used.

The hospital was already deployed during the coronavirus crisis, when staff learnt the difficulties of treating patients in a cavernous space without partition.

Noise insulation emerged as an issue, as that would have prevent others from hearing the cries of pain, said Abecassis.

Hospital staff have also sought to liven up the area by decorating the walls with posters of flowers, in the hopes of easing discomfort particularly for those with claustrophobia.

"This place may not be the prettiest, but it is the safest in the hospital," said Einat Perex, deputy chief of nurse.

As sirens wailed in the north of the country on Wednesday over suspicions of an "aerial infiltration" that was finally ruled out by Israel, about 100 patients were guided down to the area, before being led back up a few hours later to their rooms, said Israeli reservist Dan Kammoun.

"This place is unbelievable," said Perez, adding that "it is a hospital, not a carpark".


 
[ While Hamas does nothing for its population, except taking their car keys and not letting them get out of Gaza City.......]

Inspired by the warm relationship between foreign workers and the Israeli farmers they work for, the leadership of the farmers in Israel feels a great commitment to the foreign workers, their safety, and their mental state, and sees great value in mediating the war situation for them, reassuring them and their families.

When the hostilities broke out, the Agricultural Association made sure that the workers were evacuated from dangerous spots along with the other residents, and provided them with food, cash, basic supplies, and Internet connection, to create a comfortable environment for them in these difficult times.

On Tuesday, ten days into the fighting, the farmers’ organizations are moving among the foreign workers’ new dwellings, offering solutions to meet their unique needs.

Foreign employees who wish to continue working are directed to farms in safe areas; those who wish to just rest and relax for a while are offered appropriate accommodations; and those who wish to return to their home countries receive assistance from the Israeli authorities.

Now the farmers are calling on the state to help them maintain the safety and well-being of their foreign employees. They are also asking for Legislation extending foreign workers’ stay in Israel, to allow those who wish to continue working to stay at the time when farmers are especially strapped for skilled workers.







 
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash has declared that Hamas’ massacre against Israeli civilians last Saturday is considered legitimate self-defense:

Al-Habbash: “We are enacting our legitimate right in resisting these invaders defending ourselves, and defending our holy sites and our people… This occupation is temporary. Regardless of how long it takes, and regardless of how many sacrifices there will be, this occupation will leave sooner or later.
[Official PA TV, Oct. 8, 2023]​

Al-Habbash’s claiming the need to “defend our holy sites” is baseless. The claim that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger and that all the Muslim and Christian holy sites need protecting is a frequent libel by Abbas-appointed leaders and PA officials to incite the Palestinian street to attack Jews/Israelis.

Al-Habbash further justified Hamas’ atrocities not merely as acts of self-defense but as acts of “justice.” The blood of the dead Palestinian terrorist murderers – the so-called “Martyrs”- he praised as a “victory” and source of “holiness”:

“We are engaging in defending ourselves. The victory belongs to justice. Allah willing, and we hold onto justice, and this justice will triumph. These [Palestinian] Martyrs, whom we are losing painfully… their blood will cause victory and holiness to bloom, Allah willing.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 8, 2023]​

PMW has reported that the PA and Fatah have been celebrating the Hamas atrocities since the war started and that even following US pressure, Mahmoud Abbas refused to condemn the massacre.




 

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