Last functioning hospital in Northern Gaza is stormed by the IDF

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/12/world/middleeast/gaza-tunnel-israel-hamas.html

This article provides an interesting overview of the evidence around Al-Shifa. Clearly the evidence is contested, but it is plausible that hospitals are being used by Hamas as human shields. My view is that the IDF are not attacking hospitals simply to murder people. It is much more likely that they at least believe terrorists are operating there.

What do you think it is?

So if we think there is no Hamas in the hospitals and the IDF know that, what are we saying their motivation is? They’re all just murderous?

Too, numerous international humanitarian organisations, both from the UN and independent…ie MSF, WHO, Indonesia, Qatar, UNICEF, OCHR, HRW, the US Medic Mission by UHC etc have sent a constant stream of teams of doctors and nurses to these hospitals the entire war. Every one of them have said they did not see any evidence of Hamas operating from or in the hospitals. Even after coming home, safe and sound, with no way for Hamas to threaten or blackmail them into lying about it. Live video footage of attacks on hospitals from inside the hospitals by journalists has not once caught a Hamas fighter in any frame.

Yes, Israel did build a sub-basement with underground operating room, utility rooms for power, oxygen, water pumps (from the reservoir) and other storage rooms. They didn’t build tunnels that went off hospital property.

Israel has admitted to building the tunnels under Shifa hospital so those headlines aren't evidence of anything.

NYT- was disproved. The IDF graphic of a guy with a grenade launcher was actually a few buildings down the road from the hospital, but IDF drew a blue line enclosing the entire street and mis-identified the a multi-story building with shops on the ground floor and apartments above where they spotted one Hamas guy running as part of the hospital.

The Al Jazeera tunnel was a tunnel that started blocks away and its path went some 15m under a far corner of the hospital courtyard. There was no way in or out of the tunnel onto or into the hospital grounds. There were no branchings off the tunnel towards the hospital. It was as far underground as a tube line in London would be.

The CNN tunnel shaft turned out to be the shaft to the water reservoir under the hospital and in their report IDF had spliced in a different video showing a blast door they said led to a tunnel. This was debunked after analysis.

NYT 12/02/24
Hamas used hospitals for cover, weapons and tunnels
Al Jazeera 19/11/23
55 mtr tunnel under Gazas
llargest medical facility
CNN 20/11/23
Visited tunnel shaft in Al-Shifa hospital compound

It is but some views need to be challenged too, especially, when these are ill informed or factually wrong.

I think most posters here seem to think that the Israeli army should just leave Hamas alone but are avoiding saying so.
No. The Israeli army are legally obliged to follow the laws of war, laws the Israeli government willingly signed up to.
That is why I will carry on expressing my views on how the IDF are carrying on their campaign.

I also think people don’t understand what is and isn’t allowed in hospitals:

• Hostages- Hamas is required by humanitarian law to take hostages that require medical attention to a hospital for treatment. This doesn’t make the hospital a military target even if a Hamas guard is there escorting the hostages for treatment.

• Wounded combatants- once a combatant is wounded and out of action, they revert to civilian status. Humanitarian law says that an ambulance (air or ground) can transport them to a hospital and they can be a patient in the hospital and neither the ambulance or hospital are a valid military target while they have wounded in them as patients. This applies to wounded Hamas and IDF.

Mumsnet isn't going to fact check false claims so many of them stand.

I don't think there's any information proving the Israeli claim about the hospitals.

Thank you. It was a genuine question.There is so much conflicting information.

I’m sure there are bad apples in the IDF as with any army. There are also probably young people fighting, (age 18-24), heavily traumatised and in fear for their lives, who do things they wouldn’t do if they weren’t, the same as any other army. The posters on here saying the IDF are all evil terrorists enjoying killing Palestinians are spreading hate propaganda.
The trouble with the reference to bad apples is that the rot tends to spread to other apples. Many IDF soldiers have been filming themselves happily committing what might, eventually be judged to be war crimes and posting it on social media,
What do you think their instructions are btw?
Well, kill?
Name another war where enemy combatants have no uniform to differentiate themselves from civilians.
The Vietcongs didn't wear uniform, for one. It didn't end up well for the USA.
How on earth can you conduct an effective war in those circumstances? Despite this, there are reports by military strategists that this war has the lowest civilian to combatant death ratio in the history of urban warfare.
Source for this, please?
If Gaza hadn’t been filled with underground tunnels for terrorist purposes, there wouldn’t have had to be so much bombing to fill them in.
I suggest you read up on the history of the tunnels in Gaza and why they were originally built for.

They’ve never found any authenticated proof. You’d think after 15mos of raids and destruction they’d have found concrete proof.

The dismantling of the healthcare system means zero contraception. The targeted killing of local law enforcement civilians has created a lawless war zone with armed mobs looting in Gaza. The denial of humanitarian food and water aid means men are seizing what little there is a women are having to sell themselves for a bite to eat. Women are also being raped constantly by both IDF soldiers and Palestinian mobs.

Do you think you’d be able to pop a BC pill, keep your legs closed and eat three meals a day under the mob rule created by Israel’s complete 15mo siege? Do you always have a 2 year supply on hand that you can carry with you while fleeing bombs, shells, tanks?

Honestly even without the livestream genocide and apocalyptic scenes of children fighting for food, reading a few history books on sieges would have informed you on what happens to women and girls under such conditions.

If views are unacceptable or misleading I presume / hope they will be deleted.
I do think it’s important to listen to alternative views .

There's people that think differently and then there's a poster indirectly blaming women getting pregnant for their newborns freezing to death in a refugee camp. I think the poster is referring to the latter in her comment.

Do we absolutely know that Hamas are not embedded in hospitals?

How do you know terrorists are embedded in hospitals where's the proof? To what extent? how many?

I think most posters here seem to think that the Israeli army should just leave Hamas alone but are avoiding saying so.
Really? Again where's your proof that people think that way. It's so easy to dismiss other points of view and their concerns over the war crimes being committed by dismissing it as people want Hamas left alone.

I think it’s really important to hear the views of people who think differently.