How Israel Tries to protect Gaza Civilians

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-excruciating-dilemma-of-gazas?strengthens Hamas
MELANIE PHILLIPS
NOV 14
IDF soldier loads incubators for delivery to al Shifa Hospital , Gaza
So now the US has confirmed that Gaza’s al Shifa hospital is indeed used by Hamas as a command and control centre, just as Israel has always claimed — and moreover that Hamas actually held some of the hostages there in its tunnels beneath the hospital. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters today:

They have weapons stored there and are prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against the facility.

This was reinforced by the White House, which said the US has intelligence proving that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are using al Shifa and other hospitals for holding hostages and for military activity. The Times of Israel reports:

“We have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including al Shifa, and tunnels underneath them to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby tells reporters during a briefing.

“Hamas and the Palestinian Palestinian Islamic Jihad members operate a command and control [centre] from al Shifa in Gaza City. They have stored weapons there and they’re prepared to respond to an Israeli military operation against that facility,” Kirby says, citing US intelligence assessments.

Confirmation that Hamas is using the hospitals in this way has arrived to a crescendo of poisonous public hostility against Israel as its troops surround al Shifa in order to destroy the Hamas bunker. Tonight, the Israel Defence Forces have called on the Hamas operatives hunkered down there to surrender.

Western media outlets, which had been displaying contemptuous disbelief towards Israel’s claims that Gaza’s hospitals were being used as Hamas strongholds, began to look worse than stupid this week. First the IDF killed 21 Hamas terrorists who opened fire at them from the al Shifa entrance. Then the IDF revealed its discovery of Hamas tunnels underneath Gaza’s Rantisi children’s hospital, with a stash of weapons and evidence that some hostages had been kept there including a baby’s bottle and, most ominously, a bloody knife.

Despite the fact that Hamas have committed multiple heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity by using patients, hospital staff and the hostages as human shields, western public hostility and calls for restraint are being directed at Israel — as if Israel, not Hamas, are the war criminals.

“Hospitals and patients must be protected,” said the White House, stressing that innocent people do not “deserve not to be caught in the crossfire”.

Doctors at al Shifa have been reported as saying that two babies have already died and more are in danger through shortages of power and incubators. The World Health Organisation said that al Shifa “is not functioning as a hospital any more” after running out of fuel and water. The IDF has been accused of shelling the hospital; Israel says this is untrue and that it has been bombed instead by Hamas.

In the fog of war, the truth is often obscured by claim and counter-claim. What western media outlets never acknowledge, however, is that Gaza is entirely under Hamas control; nothing happens there without its approval or direction. As staff at al Shifa have testified in the past, they will be in fear of their lives unless they do and say precisely what Hamas orders them to do or say.

It should surely be clear to all with eyes to see, however, that the IDF is going to unprecedented lengths to protect the hospital’s patients and staff. The Israelis have been constantly urging the hospital to evacuate, and say people can leave at any time through a side of the hospital that remains open.

They say the hospital has electricity, that Hamas has stolen fuel that the IDF has supplied and that it has turned down further offers of fuel. In a news conference yesterday, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari circulated a video that showed Israeli troops leaving fuel about 1000 feet from the hospital’s main entrance.

According to the New York Times, Dr. Ashraf al Qudra, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, confirmed Israeli reports that an offer of hundreds of litres of fuel was made to hospital staff but said it was rejected because

taking this fuel would give Israel credit for allowing fuel into Gaza.

Here is a video (caution: taken from X/Twitter and unverified) of a frantic nurse at Al Shifa crying:

Hamas is taking over the entire hospital. They are taking hold of the fuel ,the medicine. I have nothing to treat with. I have to treat a fracture, a five year-old boy without morphine, because Hamas have taken it for themselves.

Today, the Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF is co-ordinating the transfer from an Israeli hospital to al Shifa of incubators for newborns. Sam Halpern wrote:

In a phone call released by the IDF, an officer from the Co-ordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) to Gaza, speaking with the Director General of AlShifa Hospital, can be heard offering the incubators as well as helping evacuate children and patients from the facility.

“We are ready to provide you with any assistance you wish to evacuate children and patients. We are ready to provide you with any assistance. We’ll even provide you with an incubator,” the officer said.

Asked if there was anything else he needed, the director general said that they needed respirators for some children who were in need of oxygen.The Israeli officer vowed to do what he could to secure the needed equipment.

“Anything, despite all the difficulties; whatever I can do, I will try to help you,” the CLA officer said. “I will help you protect the injured and the patients.” “Ok, and also the medical staff,” the director general said. “Of course, of course,” the CLA officer replied.

In a video released by the IDF along with the recording of the phone call, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) spokesperson, Shani Sasson, standing in front of the incubators that are to be sent to al Shifa, stated that “extensive efforts are underway to ensure that these incubators… can reach babies in Gaza without delay. Our war is against Hamas, and not the people of Gaza”. Prior to the offer of incubators, the IDF spokesperson, R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari, said that the army would help evacuate babies from the hospital.

Both the UK and US appear to be stepping up pressure on Israel over al Shifa. The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, urged Israel yesterday to “take all measures to protect innocent civilians, including at hospitals ... and allow more aid into Gaza”. At the same time US President Joe Biden said Gaza’s hospitals “must be protected” and that he hoped for “less intrusive action”.

Yet the White House subsequently walked those comments back. John Kirby, the National Security Council co-ordinator for strategic communications, later explained that Biden was not being critical of Israel but was rather discussing the difficulties that the IDF faces while operating in Gazan hospitals which are being used by Hamas as terror headquarters.

Whatever. The fact is that all such pressure on Israel by western governments gives Hamas and its backers every incentive to continue to fight, secure in the knowledge that the longer they hold out the greater the pressure on Israel from so-called allies such as the US, the UK and France to surrender. Every time the US or UK call upon Israel for “restraint” or for “humanitarian pauses” or “ceasefires,” they weaken Israel’s defence against genocidal barbarism and strengthen and incentivise the forces of evil arrayed against the Jewish state that’s fighting to prevent a second Holocaust.

There is no doubt that the laws of war permit Israel to attack the hospital if it is itself being used to mount attacks, provided Israel takes measures to avoid unnecessary loss of civilian life. There is also no doubt, however, that the Hamas-commandeered hospitals present an excruciating moral dilemma.

Israel doesn’t want to harm a single patient, doctor or nurse. At the same time, it cannot allow Hamas to use this infernal blackmail to enable it to continue its genocidal activities. Israel is clearly doing everything it can to avoid harming innocent patients and hospital staff. It is getting zero credit for doing so, and instead is being held to a totally different standard than its critics in the Biden administration, UK government and the rest of the west would ever apply to themselves in any wars.

Thus the scapegoating of the Jewish people, that has such an ancient and infernal history and is the signature motif of these morally degenerate times, steadily obliterates the horror and compassion that so briefly flickered in the west over the barbaric murder, torture, rape and beheadings of Israeli women, children and men, along with some foreign nationals, and leaves Israel once again to swing in the genocidal wind.

Let us hope, desperately, that the IDF is allowed to destroy Hamas at al Shifa, and that no more innocents are harmed.

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My most recent exclusive post for my premium subscribers argued that Britain’s supine policies sowed an evil wind; now it's reaping the whirlwind. This is how the piece begins:

https://aish.com/how-israel-tries-to-protect-gazas-civilians/?src=ac
How Israel Tries to Protect Gaza's Civilians
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by Melanie Phillips
November 12, 2023
7 min read
Despite general media malevolence, a BBC story reveals the extraordinary lengths to which the Israeli Defense Forces go to spare the lives of Gaza’s civilians.

The BBC News website recently ran a story by Alice Cuddy that describes how the Israelis rang a Gazan civilian at dawn to tell him to warn the inhabitants of three apartment blocks to evacuate because they were about to be bombed.

Mahmoud Shaheen, a dentist living in the al-Zahra neighborhood in the north of Gaza, told the BBC that on October 19 he was called on his mobile phone by a man speaking flawless Arabic who said he was from Israeli intelligence and told him not to hang up.

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Shaheen said, “He told me he wanted to bomb three towers… and ordered me to evacuate the surrounding area.”

Anxious lest this was a hoax call, Shaheen asked for warning shots to prove the caller was genuine. These duly occurred.

Now that Mahmoud knew it was real he tried to stall, asking the man to be patient. “I told him: ‘Don't betray us and bomb while people are still evacuating.’” The man said he would give Mahmoud time — he said he did not want anyone to die, the dentist recalls. Mahmoud responded that he didn't want anyone to even be injured. He kept the call going as he rushed around the neighbourhood, urging people to evacuate…

One neighbor remembers the dentist “just shouting”, then others joined in. Mahmoud could not understand why his neighborhood had become a target. “I tried my best to stop him. I asked, 'Why do you want to bomb?’” He said, ‘There are some things that we see that you don’t see.’” The man did not explain what he meant. “It is an order from people bigger than me and you, and we have an order to bomb,” the voice added, according to Mahmoud.

When the areas around the buildings were clear the man informed Mahmoud that the bombing would begin. Mahmoud panicked — what if they bombed the wrong building by mistake? “Wait a bit,” the man told him, he says. An Israeli aircraft circled overhead. Mahmoud stared at the three towers that neighbored his own apartment block. Then one of them was bombed. “This is the tower that we want, stay away,” the man on the phone said as the building fell, according to Mahmoud. The two other blocks were then destroyed...When the bombing stopped, Mahmoud remembers the voice telling him: “We’ve finished… you can go back.” ‘

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Later that day, Shaheen was called again by a different Israeli who gave his name as Daoud. Shaheen was unnerved by the level of detail the man had about his life, addressing him in a familiar way and referring to his son’s name.

Take your time. I won’t bomb unless you give me permission.

Daoud tried to explain what was happening in Gaza by referring to the slaughter of Israelis by Hamas, the details of which atrocities Shaheen apparently refused to believe. Daoud told him more buildings would be destroyed that night and that Shaheen needed to order more residents to evacuate. As Daoud subsequently informed him of more and more buildings that were targets, Shaheen ran from block to block evacuating the residents.


Then there is this telling passage:

Despite the panic, Mahmoud stayed on the phone the whole time, trying his best to delay the bombing. The voice on the other end of the phone continued, without emotion. “He even told me, ‘Take your time. I won’t bomb unless you give me permission.’ “I said ‘No, it’s not my permission. I don't want you to bomb anything. If you want me to evacuate, I will evacuate for the safety of the people, but if you want to bomb, don’t tell me you need my permission. It’s not Mahmoud Shaheen who will bomb al-Zahra.’”

Note the fact that while the Israeli was telling Shaheen that these buildings wouldn’t be bombed until he gave the all-clear that the residents were safely evacuated, Shaheen interpreted this remarkable display of military restraint merely as some kind of insulting implication of collaboration with the bombing — the point of which, of course, he was unable to comprehend.

The BBC’s story reveals the remarkably precise and detailed intelligence that Israel possesses on what’s going on in Gaza. It also illustrates the extraordinary lengths to which the Israeli Defense Forces go to spare the lives of Gaza’s civilians. As any dispassionate person who has followed Israel’s wars knows very well, the IDF try everything they can to get enemy civilians out of harm’s way — by leafleting, “knock on the roof” warning shots, phone calls and other means of communication.



No other army in the world has ever done this. When coalition forces bombed Afghanistan or when US forces flattened Mosul, no one even bothered to mention the civilians who must have been killed there. Yet Israel’s wars repeatedly engulf it in international outrage with accusations that it kills enemy civilians wantonly or deliberately. This is not just a malevolent lie; it could not be a more grotesque inversion of the truth.

The lie is nevertheless perpetrated day in, day out by western media. While the Israelis say they have killed “thousands of Hamas terrorists” in this current war, western media outlets publish Hamas claims that 10,000 “civilians” have been killed — with no attempt whatever to acknowledge that any of these were Hamas operatives and referring only to women and children among the dead.

Sadly, many civilians will unavoidably be killed in Gaza, as in any war. But the wicked distortion that turns the Israelis from scrupulous adherents to the international law requirement to try to avoid civilian deaths into war criminals turns these media outlets into Hamas accomplices.

While the BBC is a principal and habitual offender, it is to its credit that it has published the story related by Mahmoud Shaheen. It says it contacted him after many al-Zahra residents identified him as the man who had received the warning call.

Elsewhere, further evidence of Israel’s concern for Gaza’s civilians has been venomously distorted.

Yesterday, a remarkable video surfaced showing a long line of people streaming from the north of Gaza to the south. The Israelis have repeatedly warned that residents of the north should move to the south for their own safety since the north was about to become Israel’s principal focus for attack.

Some 800,000 Gazans did so, but Hamas tried to stop more joining them by firing on them, in order to keep them in place as human shields. The reason for yesterday’s large line moving south was that, with the IDF now having moved into Gaza City, its tanks could protect the evacuating civilians from Hamas attack. The video, which you can see here, shows this clearly.

Yet this is how the Guardian chose to report it:

Waving white flags and holding their hands above their heads, Palestinian families fled past tanks waiting to storm Gaza City in the next stage of the war that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said will give Israel “indefinite” control over the besieged territory.

Israel’s military gave civilians inside the encircled city a four-hour window to leave on Tuesday, as its forces prepared to retake the biggest city in the strip. Men, women and children, some carrying their belongings on donkeys, fled their homes past Israeli troops out of the city.

Posting online, one resident, Adam Fayez Zeyara, said the walk on Tuesday was the most dangerous of his life. “We saw the tanks from point blank. We saw decomposed body parts. We saw death.”

In other words, the Guardian portrayed the Gazans who were being protected by Israeli troops as fleeing from Israeli troops.

By such malevolent misrepresentation, of the kind that the media has habitually promulgated against Israel for decades, the western mind has been poisoned and fatally subverted to endorse evil against its victims.

This op-ed originally appeared on Melanie Phillips’ substack site