Israel’s Justification for Besieging Hospitals and Schools Hits a Snag

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have long held that Hamas uses hospitals and schools for their command centers, they being off limits for attack or bombing according to the rules of war. That provides the military with justification for besieging hospitals and schools.

In past conflicts with Hamas, Israel countered their rocket strikes with bombing but not with invasion, so it lacked on-the-ground proof of Hamas using civilian facilities. When a week ago the IDF attempted to expose Hamas's commandeering of hospitals, particularly Gaza's largest, Al-Shifa, it got major media attention.

It did not go well. The military may be relieved now that the headlines have shifted to the hostage exchange, because the attempted proof of their theory was something of a bust.

Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital complex.

An IDF photo showed an entrance to a tunnel on the grounds of Al-Shifa but no one went below out of fear of booby-traps, so there was no proof of tunneling beneath the hospital nor the underground rooms that would be needed for a command center.

In a video, a soldier showed a small cache of weapons and a laptop found behind an MRI machine. That a Hamas militant would so offhandedly leave weapons about in so odd a choice of place suggested a plant. After three days at the hospital, the military refused press requests to tour the hospital, maintaining that a hospital active with patients, doctors, nurses was somehow not yet secure. When the press was finally allowed in to see for themselves, the size of the weapons stash had mysteriously doubled.

Another video displays a large trove of weapons and ammunition, but it was found in a car in the hospital parking lot. Other footage from days immediately after the October 7th attack shows what Israel says are Hamas militants rushing a man down the hospital's corridor with another following on a gurney as proof Hamas controls the hospital. But the hospital treats all Gazans, including what may have been wounded Hamas gunmen or Israeli hostages, as Israel claimed they were.

There were “a lot of terrorists there,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, but "they fled as our forces approached the hospital.”

“We found a lot of weapons — a lot. We found a lot of ammunition. We found bombs. We found on level minus-two a command and control center of Hamas, with military encoded encryption.”

These were not shown to the media.

Doctors dispute the IDF claim of Hamas use of hospitals. Dr. Natalie Thurtle of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) said about the claim that Al-Shifa is a Hamas command center, "We've worked in Shifa for many years, We've never seen anything that has indicated that that is the case". Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, senior plastic surgeon there, says "They have found nothing". Norwegian physician Mads Gilbert, who has worked at Al-Shifa for 16 years says there is "no evidence at all. If it was a military command center, I would not work there."

Yet Israeli forces entered Al-Shifa with hundreds of patients and doctors still there. In a statement, the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations said Israeli soldiers were "terrorizing the thousands of civilians" sheltering on the hospital grounds and were "ransacking rooms and destroying equipment, beating medical staff who they interrogated at gunpoint". Médecins Sans Frontières called on the “Israeli government to cease this unrelenting assault on Gaza’s health system.” Their statement said Al-Shifa, where their staff was still working, "has been hit several times, including the maternity and outpatient departments, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries.” Three other hospitals in northern Gaza and Gaza City are encircled by Israeli forces and tanks, in what a doctor told Al Jazeera was a “day of war against hospitals". The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 20 of 36 hospitals in Gaza are no longer operating, mostly for lack of fuel, which Israel did not allowed into Gaza for over a month.

The IDF ultimately ordered the evacuation of Al-Shifa, some of the patients in hospital beds or wheelchairs. Mohammed Zaqout, the director of the hospitals in the Gaza strip, said to al Jazeera, "I am telling you we were forced to leave by gunpoint". The head of Al-Shifa said that Israeli forces gave them one hour to evacuate. The IDF denied issuing the order, saying they had made available a safe passage corridor for those who wanted to leave.

Having failed to prove that hospitals and schools are Hamas command sites, the Israeli Defense Forces nonetheless persist. In the West Bank, armored vehicles have surrounded four hospitals. Israeli soldiers have reportedly raided the Ibn Sina and East Jerusalem hospitals. The IDF is simultaneously laying siege to yet another Gaza medical facility, the Indonesian Hospital, which is now the sole remaining medical facility in northern Gaza. Israeli artillery fire has killed at least 12 people at the hospital, according to local officials.

Despite the IDF's weak case, the U.S. administration has bought into the hospital story unquestioningly as has the media. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan declared on CNN’s State of the Union, "You can see even from open-source reporting that Hamas does use hospitals, along with a lot of other civilian facilities, for command-and-control, for storing weapons, for housing its fighters."