Going through a global outcry over the more and more grim circumstances at besieged hospitals within the Gaza Strip, Israel sought to bolster its case for navy motion on Tuesday, releasing a video of what it stated have been weapons inside a kids’s hospital and accounts of sexual violence and different atrocities dedicated by Hamas through the Oct. 7 assaults.
Israel’s efforts got here as circumstances for sufferers, together with about three dozen untimely infants, grew to become bleaker on the major hospital complicated in Gaza Metropolis, which has been surrounded by Israeli troops and with out energy for days. Staff on the hospital, Al-Shifa, are digging a mass grave for our bodies there which have began to decompose, in keeping with the medical authorities in Gaza, which Hamas controls.
The hospital’s director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, stated that docs there had carried out surgical procedures on Monday with out anesthesia and oxygen, and that a number of individuals had died on the medical complicated. He added that well being staff had been compelled to bury our bodies contained in the grounds.
Israel offered the video — its second in two days — after weeks wherein protesters, for and towards the navy marketing campaign, have demonstrated world wide and because the United Nations, support teams and lots of international locations have criticized Israel, referred to as for a cease-fire and warned of calamity on the hospitals. In current days, President Biden has additionally urged Israel to make use of restraint round medical facilities, saying, “Hospitals must be protected.”
Israel asserts that Hamas has dug a network of tunnels beneath Gaza’s hospitals, utilizing the sufferers and staff inside them as human shields for its command facilities and secure homes. The USA has backed Israel’s description, saying it has intelligence to that impact. Hamas and hospital officers have denied the accusations.
To persuade skeptics of its declare, Israel launched the movies from inside Gaza’s major kids’s hospital, displaying what it stated have been weapons and explosives discovered there, and a room the place, the navy stated, hostages had been stored.
“This is not the last hospital like this in Gaza, and the world should know that,” stated Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli navy’s chief spokesman. “It’s a crime.”
Whereas the Well being Ministry in Gaza on Tuesday disputed almost each assertion made within the preliminary Israeli video, it acknowledged that the footage had been taken inside Al-Rantisi Specialised Hospital for Kids in northern Gaza. The final sufferers and workers are believed to have left the hospital over the weekend after it was surrounded by Israeli forces.
The primary Israeli video, a six-minute presentation launched on Monday, exhibits Admiral Hagari strolling viewers via what he says is the doorway to a tunnel that purportedly runs towards the hospital, and weapons discovered within the hospital basement. It exhibits weapons, explosives and different weapons organized as if by the police displaying the haul from a drug raid. The weaponry’s provenance couldn’t be independently confirmed.
The Israeli navy adopted up on Tuesday, posting a second, shorter video on social media. It runs simply over two minutes and purports to indicate troops speeding into the constructing, and consists of clips of them discovering explosives, weapons and a room the place, Admiral Hagari claims, hostages have been stored within the beforehand launched video.
Osama Hamadan, a Hamas spokesman, talking at a information convention in Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday, referred to as the primary presentation a “lie and charade.” There was no fast remark from Gazan officers or Hamas on the second video.
Each movies contained assertions that might not be instantly verified.
A bit of paper taped on a wall within the hospital’s basement, as an illustration, rapidly grew to become the topic of debate. Admiral Hagari stated the paper — a grid with Arabic phrases and numbers inside every sq. — may very well be a schedule for guarding hostages “where every terrorist writes his name.”
The paper, although, didn’t embody individuals’s names — the Arabic phrases have been days of the week, and the numbers beneath dates. The Gazan Well being Ministry stated in a press release that the paper was nothing greater than “a regular work shift timetable, a standard administrative practice in hospitals.”
The ministry didn’t deal with one key element: The calendar begins on Oct. 7, and an Arabic title written on the high makes use of Hamas’s title for the assault: “Al Aqsa Flood Battle, 7/10/2023.”
As for the weapons proven on the video, the ministry stated, “We don’t know where they got them.”
Dr. Mustafa Al Kahlout, the hospital’s director, stated on Tuesday that households fleeing Israeli bombardment had sought shelter at Al-Rantisi and different hospitals. He referred to as on the Crimson Cross and different worldwide organizations to “inspect all part of the hospitals.”
The White Home on Tuesday supported Israel’s description of Hamas’s use of hospitals for navy functions, although it declined to offer particular particulars. “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,” the spokesman for the Nationwide Safety Council, John F. Kirby, instructed reporters.
“We do not support striking a hospital from the air,” he added. “And we do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, sick people are simply trying to get the medical care that they deserve.”
Israel’s protection minister, Yoav Gallant, stated on Tuesday that Israeli forces now management “the aboveground area” of northern Gaza — an outline that pointedly omitted the tunnels under floor — and will flip towards southern Gaza, as they put together for the potential for “long months” of preventing forward.
As Israeli troops have closed in, hospitals in northern Gaza have turn out to be a focus of worldwide concern. The World Well being Group stated on Sunday that Al-Shifa was “not functioning as a hospital anymore” and warned of a “dire and perilous” scenario for sufferers and 1000’s of individuals sheltering there. Hospital officers stated on Monday that about three dozen untimely infants have been with out incubators due to the shortage of energy.
Israeli officers, defending the marketing campaign, have pressured that they’re making an attempt to restrict the hurt to Gaza’s greater than two million civilians. Although the Biden administration has expressed skepticism of tolls issued by the Gazan authorities, “many thousands” of civilians have been killed, Mr. Kirby stated final week.
The Israeli navy stated late Monday that it was working to ship cellular incubators and respirators to Al-Shifa Hospital in an try to assist evacuate infants there. In a press release, the navy stated it was “willing to work with any reliable mediating party to ensure the transfer of the incubators.”
The New York Instances was unable to succeed in the hospital director or the spokesman for the Gaza Well being Ministry to ask about Israel’s supply, the small print of which remained unclear.
Israel additionally sought to shed additional mild on the brutality of the assault on Oct. 7, when Hamas gunmen killed about 1,200 individuals in Israel and took greater than 200 hostages, in keeping with the Israeli authorities.
At a information briefing on Tuesday, Kobi Shabtai, Israel’s police chief, confirmed movies taken from the physique cameras of slain Hamas terrorists, surveillance footage, crime-scene pictures and a video of an Israeli girl who stated she had seen terrorists gang-raping a younger girl captured at a music festival within the desert.
“This is the most extensive investigation the State of Israel has ever known,” Chief Shabtai stated. “There was a massacre here — crimes against humanity. We have evidence of acts of murders, rapes, amputations, burning people alive, sexual abuse and confirmation of death and kidnapping.”
The briefing was one among a number of that Israeli officers have held for journalists wherein they’ve shared graphic images and movies from Oct. 7, and the pictures included some that they had proven earlier than. Just a few of the movies seen on Tuesday, together with people who present individuals being killed, had been posted on social media by the attackers. Others couldn’t be independently verified.
“The world needs to know what we are facing,” Chief Shabtai stated.
Reporting was contributed by Anat Schwartz, Iyad Abuheweila, Aaron Boxerman, Daniel Victor, Ronen Bergman, Talya Minsberg, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Hiba Yazbek.
