The Gaza hospital blood libel
Western media that promulgate murderous demonisation are a source of evil
On Friday and Saturday, the Israeli Defence Forces conducted a raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza. The IDF said it was being used as a Hamas command and control centre.
At the hospital they arrested no fewer than 240 terrorists, 15 of whom, they said, had participated in the October 7 massacre in Israel. Inside the hospital, they found weapons including grenades, guns, and military equipment. The IDF killed 19 terrorists there; 700 civilians were evacuated and none was killed. Some of the terror operatives, said the IDF, posed as medical staff and patients. Some tried to leave on stretchers and in ambulances; of a first group of 21 patients leaving the hospital, 13 turned out to be terrorist suspects.
The IDF also said that before the raid, 350 patients as well as caregivers and medical personnel were evacuated to other hospitals. The Israelis delivered thousands of litres of fuel, food, and medical supplies for the essential functioning of the hospital. Once operations began 95 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were evacuated to Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, to which the IDF delivered 5,000 litres of fuel, two generators and medical equipment. Additionally, hundreds of civilians were able to move away from the area for their own safety via defined evacuation routes.
In video footage taken by Hamas itself and released by the IDF, Hamas operatives were filmed planting explosives about 45 metres away from the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, to where patients from Kamal Adwan were moved.
Using a hospital for military purposes is a war crime. It turns such a hospital from a protected space into a legitimate military target under international law. In Britain and America, however, the media did not report the hijack of Kamal Adwan hospital as a war crime. There was no outcry over the gross abuse of medical facilities that had turned a place of healing into an active war front and put patients at risk. Instead, media outlets faithfully parroted Hamas propaganda and accused Israel of burning the hospital down.
NBC News headlined the story:
Israel burns northern Gaza’s last functioning hospital; patients and staff removed.
AP wrote:
Middle East latest: Israeli soldiers burn a hospital in Gaza.
Newsweek wrote:
North Gaza Hospital Burns After Israel Removes Patients, Staff: Officials.
The Guardian headlined its live blog:
Officials claim Israeli military “burning” Kamal Adwan hospital after forced evacuation of patients.
Also parroting Hamas was its ideological soul-mate, the World Health Organisation, which tweeted on X:
Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid.
The IDF replied that the fire accusation was a heinous lie. It tweeted:
Today, the IDF started a counter-terrorism precise operation in the area of Kamal Adwan hospital. While IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control. After preliminary examination, no connection was found between IDF activity to the fire. Meanwhile, headlines are exclaiming “IDF troops burned the hospital”. Running with unsubstantiated reports on the cause of this fire shows nothing but questionable journalistic integrity.
No major mainstream media outlet reported this IDF statement. Instead, a hue and cry has been building over the arrest of the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam abu Safiya, on suspicion of being a Hamas terrorist.
Abu Safiya has been near-universally presented as a saintly doctor trying vainly to protect his patients against Israeli aggression. Earlier this month, the New York Times published an affecting account of his cry for help as the last doctor in the hospital.
However, it would appear that abu Safiya is perhaps less saintly than the New York Times would have us believe. On October 9 2023, two days after the Hamas pogrom, abu Safiya reportedly described it on his personal social media account as an act of God.
Photographs have shown him meeting top Hamas officials. He has also posted this:
O Allah, protect our people in the West Bank in general and in Jenin in particular, and protect the beloved people of Palestine and al Aqsa Mosque from the oppression and aggression of the Jews.
and this:
O Allah, we place You before them, and we seek refuge in You from their evil. O Allah, turn their plots against them and make their destruction in their schemes. O Allah, protect the Jenin refugee camp from the plots of the criminals.
One might think that such a man would obviously have questions to answer if 240 of his staff, including doctors and other health workers, were discovered to be terrorists. Instead, the media did what they invariably do — imply that the IDF can’t be believed while they report Hamas claims without question.
Except, of course, where Hamas actually tell the truth. Which the media don’t report at all.
One year ago, the former director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, Ahmad Kahlot, who had been a senior member of Hamas since 2010, revealed in a Shin Bet interrogation that his hospital had been turned into a military facility under Hamas’s control and that at one point it had even housed a kidnapped Israeli soldier.
Times of Israel reported in December 2023:
In footage published on Tuesday by the Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces, hospital director Ahmed Kahlot could be seen telling an Israeli interrogator that Hamas had offices inside the hospital and used it as a base for operational activity.
According to Kahlot, who said he has been a lieutenant colonel in Hamas since 2010, some 16 members of the hospital’s staff — including doctors, nurses and paramedics — were Hamas operatives serving in the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the terror organisation. He added that several members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades were also employed in the hospital.
During this interrogation, Kahlot described how Hamas uses hospitals for military purposes, including hiding its operatives, carrying out military activity, moving around Hamas members. He told his interrogators:
They hide in hospitals because for them a hospital is a safe place. They won't be targeted when they are inside a hospital. I know 16 employees in the hospital — doctor, nurse, paramedic, or clerks… who also have different positions in al-Qassam.
There are offices where the Hamas leader and two of the senior officials were. There’s a place where the soldier was in (the kidnapped soldier). There’s a place for the interrogators, internal security, and special security. All of them have private telephone lines inside the hospital.
They [Hamas] have a private ambulance, even it colour and the way it’s painted are different, and it doesn’t have a licence plate. They used it to transport the soldier [kidnapped] and transport bodies… It didn’t assist us with transporting the injured.
I begged [him] to take someone to the Indonesian Hospital, take to Shifa [hospital], but he would refused. His mission is more important. The leaders of Hamas are cowards. They left us in the field while they hide in secret places… They have destroyed us.
A few days ago, the Palestinian Authority, no less, stated that Hamas turns hospitals into military interrogation facilities. Palestinian Media Watch has reported that the PA posted up a summons issued by Hamas instructing a Gazan to report to Nasser Hospital to be interrogated there by Hamas's military intelligence. The post was made by the former official spokesman of the PA Security Forces, Adnan al Damiri. Moreover, al Damiri criticised Hamas for continuing to use hospitals for “summonses, interrogations, and extortions”.
You might think that the WHO would be extremely concerned to hear of this gross abuse of medical facilities and the commission of such war crimes against patients and doctors. But on this, the WHO is silent. Instead its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X:
Hospitals in Gaza have once again become battlegrounds and the health system is under severe threat. Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza is out of service following the raid, forced patient and staff evacuation and the detention of its director. His whereabouts are unknown. We call for his immediate release.
Now look at this post on X by Eitan Fishberger, which he says provides a translation of the first two paragraphs of an article on the Palestinian Donia al Watan news site that acknowledges abu Safiya's rank in Hamas:
The Directorate of Military Medical Services organised a series of scientific lectures on Wednesday morning for paediatricians from hospitals and paediatric departments in Adwan Complex, the Algerian Hospital, and paediatric departments affiliated with the Ministry of Health. The lectures were held in the conference hall within the Adwan Complex in North Gaza Governorate.
The opening was attended by the Director General of Medical Services, Brigadier General Saeed Al-Saudi; the Director of the Adwan Complex, Colonel Ahmad Al-Kahlout; the Director of the Paediatric Hospital at the Adwan Complex, Colonel Hossam Abu Safia; and approximately 60 doctors working in paediatric departments in hospitals affiliated with the Medical Services and the Ministry of Health across the Gaza Strip.
The text explicitly uses terms that imply a military context:
The phrase “Directorate of Military Medical Services” is translated from "مديرية الخدمات الطبية العسكرية". The word “عسكرية” explicitly denotes a military affiliation.
The rank “Brigadier General” is referred to in Arabic as “العميد سعيد السعودي”, where “عميد” is equivalent to Brigadier General in military terminology.
The rank “Colonel” appears in “العقيد أحمد الكحلوت” and “العقيد حسام أبو صفية”, where “عقيد” directly translates to Colonel.
The text is framed within a military structure, as evidenced by the use of these designations.
Even if some of these details aren’t correct, Hamas has itself acknowledged that Gaza’s hospitals are used for military purposes and that the Kamal Adwan hospital is a Hamas terrorist hub. These are war crimes; yet on all this, the media and the WHO are silent. Instead, they accuse Israel of burning a hospital and targeting the sick.
That’s a blood libel. Where are the decent western leaders to call out this evil?