Flashback 2014: Hamas hides in, under and around Gaza’s main hospital, and the media covers it up (Video)
The past is prologue. Hamas hides military assets among civilians, including at and near hospitals, knowing that civilian casualties will increase international pressure on Israel. Keep that in mind as Israel responds to Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel in which several hundred people have died, thousands injured, and at least dozens kidnapped to Gaza.
The Hamas surprise attack on Israel has been murderous and brutal. The Islamic supremacist death cult psychopaths have brutalized civilians in manners worthy of ISIS.
The Israeli official death toll as of this writing exceeds three hundred people killed, over 1000 wounded, and at least dozens taken hostage and kidnapped to Gaza. Palestinian civil society is ecstatic, with cheering crowds spitting on and defiling the bodies of the dead Israelis and tourists that have been dragged to Gaza.
Israel has no choice but to extract a massive toll on Hamas and other terror groups who also participated. This is not going to be like prior conflicts, such as in 2014, where there was fighting but everyone knew from the start the fighting was over the terms of the ceasefire. Israel was content to leave Hamas in power, viewing the barbarians as the lesser of evils among the many Palestinian terror groups. That will change.
The carnage and savagry will require Israel to decapitate Hamas. The old normal has to change.
The hostages held in Gaza will not be recovered alive unless Israel gives major concessions and leaves Hamas in power. While of course Israel wants to get them back alive, Israeli military options are severely constrained if that is the goal. Hamas has grown comfortable taking hostages and using them as shields to temper Israeli military responses. The goals of toppling Hamas and getting the hostages back alive are not consistent. Israel faces a tough choice.
Hamas prepares for these conflicts with international media and political opinion in mind. Western academics, purported “human rights” groups, and pundits, are an important part of Hamas’ war effort. Hamas deliberately locates rocket launchers and other military assets in and among civilians, knowing that dead Gaza civilians serve a military purpose – to grow international pressure on Israel to hold back. The international media will mindlessly cite “Gaza health officials” without mentioning Hamas runs the Gaza health ministry and regularly lies about casualties as part of the war effort.
We covered this tactic in the summer 2014 conflict, including how the main Gaza al-Shifa hospital served as a Hamas military facility and its parking lot as a rocket firing location. Given what we expect will happen in the coming weeks, it’s worth running the post again, Hamas hides in, under and around Gaza’s main hospital, and the media covers it up (Video).
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There have been reports for years that Hamas uses the main hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa, as a headquarters.
It reportedly has bunkers underneath, and uses the hospital itself.
There have been tidbits of media reporting on Hamas’ use of Al-Shifa as a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.
But mostly it has been covered up by reporters in Gaza, as I detailed in Media cover-up of Hamas crimes starting to unravel. Tweets have been deleted and articles taken down by reporters for major publications.
One Italian reporter who left Gaza blew the whistle on the fact that it was Hamas or Islamic Jihad misfired rockets that cause a large number of deaths in a refugee camps. The victims were transported to Al-Shifa, where another rocket had already hit. A Wall Street Journal reporter tweeted, then deleted, his observation that it was a Hamas rocket that hit the hospital.
Once the evidence became clear that Israel was not responsible, the media moved on, as if it never happened.
The media has a narrative it wants to tell, and that narrative does not include the deaths, injuries and damage Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others are causing.
Here is a good example of how the media played up an Israeli missile striking near Western reporters:
Missile strike hits near Aljazeera journalist @nickschifrin while preparing for live report from #Gaza. pic.twitter.com/5ad9UJu5xJ
— Negar Mortazavi نگار (@NegarMortazavi) August 1, 2014
While ignoring that Hamas had fired rockets from either the same or similar area:
.@NegarMortazavi @caseysjournal @nickschifrin before or after Hamas fired rockets from journalist area? http://t.co/UQfAQaXA6e
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) August 1, 2014
I see this pattern all day long on Twitter.
If you don’t think the international media is anti-Israel, then you aren’t paying attention.
But one brave Finnish reporter told it as it was, exposing how rockets are fired from close to al-Shifa:
I check the translation in the video captions with a native Finnish speaker, and the text is basically right, although there are some nuances that don’t change the overall point:
Hey Bill,
I assume you want to get it as accurate as you can so:
It should be more like:
Also, a rocket attack was conducted from the “backyard” of the hospital at 2 o’clock in the morning. It (the rocket launch), in fact, happened somewhere close by because the noise right here at the hospital area was really loud. Indeed, these rockets launched here from the Gazan side (of the border) are headed into Israel.
Comments:
– There is not even a sliver of indication of a parking lot. As long as the viewers don’t think that she is stating strong facts that she is confident that it actually happened from the hospital premises.
– When the caption goes “really” & “it’s true” – that is plain wrong. These sentences begin with either a filler verb that basically would state the obvious: These rockets launched here from the Gazan side DO head into Israel. The other option is that she is using filler words such as “indeed” “in fact”.
How do you deal with such an enemy that hides in, under and around hospitals as part of a deliberate human shield strategy?
And equally important, how does the media ignore it?
Is this Finnish reporter the only one to have seen rockets fired from close to al-Shifa, or is she the only one brave and honest enough to tell about it?
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Comments
How? Resolutely. Start running broadcasts on radio and TV urging anyone in Gaza who doesn’t wish to join in the fighting to exit. Drop leaflets with the same info. The after whatever head start time was given for non combatants to GTFO of Gaza entirely to avoid being part of the fighting start dropping bombs and missiles on any location under suspicion. Then a rolling artillery barrage. Till the whole place is rubble. Then search the remains for any surviving terrorists who remain alive. Terrorists, like Pirates, don’t have a whole lot of legal protections unless Israel chooses to grant them some protections.
Is that a joke?
They literally cheer when they parade bodies of naked murdered Israelis through the streets.
There IS NOBODY in Gaza who ‘doesn’t wish to join in the fighting’.
And it’s long past time that Israel and the West acknowledge this simple fact.
No not a joke. Just an opportunity to avoid staying in place and subject to an ROE that boils down to anyone who stays is a terrorist not a lawful combatant. Only lawful combatants enjoy protection under the laws of warfare, therefore anyone who stays should expect to be killed not captured and if captured summarily executed.
While the vast majority of the folks in Gaza are just as you describe, probably 95%+ in fact, a very few of the residents are not so keen or willing to becoming martyrs themselves. Give them a head start and then tell the usual apologists of terrorism who are already whining about ‘proportionality’ to STFU and point to the offered head start escape/warning as justification.
No head start. Just start bombing all known locations that these savages use for operations, and destroy them. Utterly destroy them.
Hospital? Gone
School? Gone
Mosque? Gone
Show zero mercy.
Let them parade dead civilian savages in the streets. Hamas just did the same with innocents.
Burn it all down.
It’s really just for PR value for when the whining lefties start in about ‘proportional response’ BS. Known/suspected targets should be hit immediately. The head start would only apply to the rolling artillery barrage and/or thermobaric bombs being deployed. Anyone not choosing to flee should expect to be killed without quarter or hesitation. Set the example for the West Bank as an object lesson.
FWIW, with Hezbollah now firing rockets from Lebanon my advice to Israel should be to issue a.statement along the lines of ‘We have our hands full in Gaza, so we can’t afford time or attention to worrying about collateral damage in Lebanon, therefore an unrestricted bombing and artillery campaign against any suspected Hezbollah locations until all hostile actions from Lebanon have been halted for 72 hours. Until that condition is met Israel will use all the tools in it’s arsenal to secure the safety of it’s people. No questions. Depart the podium. Then do it.
LP tankers are a good alternative to thermobaric bombs. Those people will not need the LP for anything else.
If only. But they can identify military objectives as broad as possible and destroy them whenever so identified and with proper precautions.
When the main hospital is Hamas HQ, everything is a target. I agree with CommoChief on radio and TV warnings, millions of leaflets – and shut off the water and electricity. Then destroy everything. Sadly, the Professor is right that the hostages will be killed. However, the only way to get them back alive will be under terms that guarantees that this happens again. No matter what the cost, Israel has to make clear ASAP to everyone that this time is different and not to go looking for the same fate.
Only if you can justify it as a military objective, even if civilians might die. Under the circumstances here, Israel gets wide latitude, a so-called margin of appreciation. It sure would be easier and more effective, however, to level it all and start from scratch. From the outside looking in, Israel needs to untie the hand behind its back and go full steam ahead.
Terrorists are not lawful combatants. They enjoy no protection under the rules of warfare. Anyone not fleeing is a terrorist. Gaza isn’t ‘Nation’ they don’t get to enjoy the protections of the rules unless Israel chooses to be benevolent, they certainly are not required to treat them as lawful combatants. We conducted similar operations in the sandbox and enforced it ruthlessly on occasion dropping ordinance and artillery to level multiple city blocks then bringing in tanks and infranty to clear out remaining survivors. ‘Stacking the bodies’ isn’t just a cool phrase you hear used by Veterans, it was very much a reality in the sandbox.
If only it was that easy. Won’t fly under LOAC. Sorry.
It is that easy. We enforced a curfew by shooting anyone outside after dark. We enforced a 50-100 meter protective bubble around our vehicles by bringing under fire anyone or any vehicle approaching us. All it takes is making the decision to do it.
Just to clear up your confusion on a very basic point, the law of armed conflict only comes into play between signatory Nations. A Non State belligerent party does not have any presumptive protections, it only receives what the Nation State signatory chooses to offer out of benevolence. A terrorist group, even one with a pseudo govt such as Hamas, which in any event isn’t signatory nor does it abide by these protections, has zero presumptive ‘rights’ to assert nor does their pseudo govt. Sucks to be them.
That hospital should be ground zero, collatorial damage can be a feature.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/breaking-taliban-asks-iran-passage-israel-assist-hamas/
The media has provided no evidence that they will report the facts in this case either. I expect to hear that Hamas is engaged in “mostly peaceful” protests hereafter.
“Mostly peaceful genocide.”
Which should be met with mostly peaceful genocide. By the way, thermobaric bombs
have the advantage of on the spot creamation.
The difference will be more reports on X (Twitter) and other nontraditional routes to get the stories out.
Last I saw is that as many as 160 Israelis have been kidnapped, and over 250 killed.
Better to be killed than taken hostage by these terrorist bastards.
Most are said to be women. Absolutely awful.
Arabs in Palestine ran theeir stupid yaps about driving Jews into the sea, turnabout is fair in my view..
The “human rights” community looks the other way, fully aware. They pretend to walk the high ground but enable those working in the depths. They must be shamed for the suffering they help cause, for their abandonment of morality, while they wine and dine at conference after conference and lecture everyone else about humanity. Frauds!
As for how to fight the asymmetric war, Israel has done quite well, despite the clear violations of humanitarian law by Hamas, and now it can and should take it to the next level.
Israel should have taken it to the next level years ago, maybe decades ago.
I’m sorry about the hostages but they need to burn Hamas and all their helpers to the ground or this will never stop.
After all of these years of allowing Hamas and the filthy bastards to live in peace in Gaza, we realize that they were always planning this type of attack. I would give Gaza 48 hours to evacuate and then raze it. Tell the leftist reporters that are there to show how mercilessly Israelis kill women and children to also leave. They must return it to a wasteland and detonate as many subterranean bombs as possible to destroy the tunnels that exist. There can be no peace with these monsters!
A lot of weapons can be relocated in 48 hours. This is war. Don’t give a warning, just do what is needed. Level the place.
No warning, just action.
@SkyNews
Reports from medical aid group MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) say that a nurse and an ambulance driver have been killed after Israeli airstrikes on Gaza hospitals
Well, if Hamas would stop locating their missile launch sites at public hospitals then that kind of thing wouldn’t be happening. But there we go and here we are.
Precisely why I linked the agitprop.
Tell them tough shit, drop more bombs.
OSINTdefender
@sentdefender
7h
A Rocket launched from the Gaza Strip achieved a Direct Hit on the Barzilai Medical Center in the City of Ashkelon although thankfully there does not appear to be any Casualties.
Politico: https://tinyurl.com/47s9d9dz
10/29/2014
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday “lashed out” at a report that an unnamed senior Obama administration had called him a “chickenshit,” saying that he is being attacked for trying to defend his country.
“Our vital interests, first and foremost our security and a unified Jerusalem, are not the uppermost interests of the unnamed officials who attacked our government and me personally,” the prime minister said in a speech to the Knesset. “I’m being attacked simply because I defend the State of Israel … Despite all the attacks against me, I will keep defending our country and Israel’s people.”
And this senile fraud clown’s administration is still touting a “two state solution.” I have a counter proposal. How about a no Palestinian state solution? I think the world has enough Islamofascist regimes.
There is only one thing to do with an enemy who intends to kill you. You must eliminate the enemy. If you don’t, you can expect to be killed.