BBC goes inside Al-Shifa hospital with the Israeli army

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to World News@lemmy.world – 87 points –
BBC goes inside Al-Shifa hospital with the Israeli army
bbc.com
52

This is bizarre and macabre.

First, I want to say that I don't care if they find tunnels in the hospital or not. Cutting patients off of electricity and medicine is not justified even if they find the massive bad-guy secret base that they say is underneath the hospital.

But on top of that, if the tunnels aren't there... what then? Do we get an apology? Do they bring back the patients?

I'm shocked that they're touring journalists and showing off rifles and BOOKS as evidence that this was a legitimate military target.

I want a ceasefire. I want the hostages back. And I want Gaza to have the freedom to select leadership that represents them to engage in a peace process that gives them the right of movement, education, food, and safety.

Some of the rifles the BBC has already confirmed were planted: https://twitter.com/_RichardHall/status/1725498963174752490?t=eRT8uuGerft1G0Hs9mbnjg&s=19

I really want to reiterate: it's a waste of time to debate.

We all already know that Hamas commits war crimes, and we also already know that none of these war crimes justify Israeli crimes against humanity. Debating whether Hamas used a given hospital to store a specific gun is like debating whether I owe you $100 or $200 for dinner last week when I already owe you $50,000. Who cares's what the bill was last week? It's a distraction.

Here's where we must insist on putting our attention: generations of occupation and displacement have been a disaster for Palestinians and liberal Israelis. It has only been a success for Jewish supremacists, and those people have been pulling the wool over American liberals for far, far, far too long. We need to get out of debates over any given hospital and demand new leadership in Israel that commits to ending the Israeli apartheid and expanding civil rights to the people living in the Palestinian territories illegally annexed by Israel.

They did NOT confirm that. Can you provide a quote from this video where it says that?

Even the fucking CNN, notorious for supporting the Zionist state, is picking this story up. Deny as much as you like, it won't make things less true.

CNN analysis: Video suggests IDF might have rearranged weaponry at Al-Shifa prior to news crew visits

I... didn't say that. I don't doubt they did it, but you didn't post a source and are making claims based on what, exactly? The BBC noted a cut in the video and that the scene could have been rearranged. Idk why you're so up in arms.

The BBC compared the original video to the one they correspondent took and noticed that the guns had been shuffled and a new gun had been added to the pile.

If I didn't link the full video, that's my bad. I'm not sure how to link BBC broadcasts.

Sure but to say they outright accused Israel of planting them is wrong. Good information is already hard enough to find. They are still pussyfooting around it and took a fairly neutral and evidence based view. That is all I'm saying

A new gun was placed in the pile before it was shown to journalists.

How, exactly, do you define "planting" if that's not it?

Clearly they didn't till the soil first. Can it really be planting?

Why can't that be an additional gun they found? Maybe it was rearranged for camera? The BBC segment did not make any hard claims just that the evidence was suspect. You can draw your own conclusions but you can't say the BBC outright made this claim. Don't trust the IDF blindly, but I have to approach reporting on the conflict this way to stay sane. Too many people spewing nonsense, misinformation, and propaganda (not u specifically).

The IDF, claiming that they're giving journalists unadulterated access to a supposed Hamas base:

Exactly. We only know they aren't being fully forthcoming. We don't know the reasons and can only infer. The BBC stopped short of drawing conclusions and merely fact checked the statements they were given. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, fair enough. I should've made a weaker claim.

The same bbc that reported about hamas tunnels years ago but is now referring to them as unconfirmed reports from israel?

We know that there were tunnels and bunkers under al-Shifa. After all, the IDF built them. Whether they're still in use today is very questionable: if you were Hamas, would you center your operation around something that your enemy knows every detail of?

Well the bbc knew about hamas tunels in gaza but they don’t seem to be able to acknowledge it at present. You might be confusing facts. israel built the hospital. Hamas built the tunnels in gaza. Those are not even similar.

It’s hard to say how I would behave if my worldview was tainted by beliefs that make someone think all jews should be exterminated.

Back in 1983, when Israel still ruled Gaza, they built a secure underground operating room and tunnel network beneath al-Shifa hospital – which is one among several reasons why Israeli security sources are so sure that there is a main Hamas command bunker in or around the large cement basement beneath the area of Building 2.

As reported on by the pro-Israel publication The Tablet.

They've just forcing the evacuation on everyone there. If the hospital is then demolished, we all know they didn't find the tunnel.

My hope is they bring back the hostage but so far there's absolutely no solid proof that the hospital currently hold any amount of hostage, or at least already not there.

The only way we're getting the hostages back is through negotiation. Military hostage recovery is just a euphemism for body recovery.

At least living ones. They already found two bodies of hostages near or in the complex.

IDF conveniently finds bodies of dead hostages they surely didn't plant there themselves.

Tunnels or gtfo.

This response is so pathetic. Nobody gives a shit what you want. Apparently dead hostages isn't good enough for you. Shows just how pathetic a piece of scum you are.

Unless it was the body cam of the soldier who found them with the entire unedited video segment of them getting to that location, it's planted and bullshit. Because everything else the IDF has shown so far has been fake planted bullshit.

Indiscriminate bombing leads to dead hostages. The Hannibal Directive at work.

Since US already agreed that hamas operated in the hospital and countries know it would not be a violation of international law in that case they only need to show evidence to gain public approval.

I thoroughly disagree with the idea that Israel is cleared of wrongdoing if Hamas operated in the hospital.

Israel has been in flagrant violation of international law for YEARS. Under international law, they're obligated to provide healthcare and food to people living under occupation. Under international law, apartheid is illegal. Under international law, you're not allowed to create conditions intended to make life unlivable for a targeted ethnic group. That's one of the acts designated as genocide.

This is why I keep saying that the discussion over this single hospital is a distraction. We need to keep our focus on the larger picture: millions of people across Israel-Palestine are denied basic rights: Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinians citizens of Israel, Israeli leftists, Mizrahi and Sphardaic Israeli Jews, Bedouins, immigrant workers... and that won't end until we stop enabling it.

again you might disagree and repeat hamas propaganda points but international law says otherwise. it's not a debate in that context. if you disagree you are basically saying that you have more moral clarity than the red cross. do you really think you have more moral clarity than them?

Was this intended to respond to another comment? I don't see how this connects to what I just said.

I guess you are not ready to condemn the Red Cross so you feign confusion instead of acknowledging the point.

1 more...

This building has become a central focus of Israel's war, described as a key command centre, even potentially the "beating heart" of Hamas operations.

Israeli forces are still searching for the tunnels beneath the hospital that they believe Hamas fighters may have withdrawn to, perhaps with some of the hostages.

The BBC was not shown what was on the laptops.

In the brightly lit corridors of the MRI unit, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus shows us three small stashes of Kalashnikovs, ammunition and bullet-proof vests - he says they have found around 15 guns in all, along with some grenades.

Lt Col Conricus also shows us some military booklets and pamphlets, and a map that he says is marked with potential entry and exit routes from the hospital.

The report of finding 15 guns is my idea of a small cache than a central military command centre.

And about those tunnels... is the IDF going to find them or are they going to dig them and say they were there?

Yeah, 15 guns in a hospital that holds thousands, in the middle of an active warzone? That's probably the lowest density of guns in the whole of Gaza right now. Hell I'm willing to bet that if you were to search any big hospital on the planet, there's probably 15 guns stored somewhere.

If you went to an American hospital (or a school, even), you'd probably find at least that density.

Not that it matters. But generally speaking, no you would not.

Security guards, the mandatory police officer guy, and the guns that get snuggled in.

Average America isn't your big coastal elite city.

Many schools are gun free zones.

Gun free zones for citizens.

School resource officers, School police, normal police, are all allowed to carry weapons in American School gun-free zones.

If we talk about any public university, the campus police definitely have weapons, and they have backup weapons, and they have a weapon firing range.

These are just people whose job it is to carry weapons, this isn't talking about people who work at the school who get policy exemptions and concealed Carry permits.

For talking about a hospital complex that houses thousands of workers, there is going to be more than 15 guns in the complex

It's not that ubiquitous, and that pithy comment was referring to kalashnikovs, which you will find in none of those places.

Great, just many schools. This, anyway, still only applies to unauthorized guns. Authorized personnel are still allowed guns.

And you think Hamas running away from there would just leave all the weapons behind to self-incriminate and lose valuable resources that have even more inflated price considering how hard it is to smuggle them to Gaza. Makes sense.

You'll find more than that at a hospital in the US from the security guards. You probably won't find grenades though.

Interview with someone at a Ukrainian hospital mentioned that one of the first things to do treating people who came from fighting was to remove all the grenades and ammo from their pockets, so that stuff would certainly be expected in any war zone hospital.

That does make sense. Don't want your patient accidentally exploding. That would be bad bedside manner.

When I saw the video the IDF released I kept waiting for the big reveal that never came. Just a whole lot of nothing in the hospital

Seeing what they found vs the fantastical 3D video of the tunnels under the hospital is both funny and sad (for those that died because of it). Israel has had a track record of lying but more than ever thanks to decentralization of information and not having to rely on lying news networks people are seeing the truth.

Man, is this seriously going turn into into the Iraq has WMD boondoggle/fiasco:

“Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation to the UN on February 5, 2003, in which he detailed false intelligence gatherings provided by the Israeli government regarding Iraqi WMD.”

Source 1: Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence

Source 2: Israel knew Iraq had no WMD, says MP

I forgot it was Israeli Intelligence source back then 🤔. I only remember Bush insisting there are WMDs and Colin Powell's declaration at the UN. All of it was proven fake of course, and 20 years later it has become the biggest and most expensive Intelligence blunder.

Hopefully, I am wrong and we were smarter to verify everything before repeating the same reckless mistake.

I try to not comment on controversial issues particularly when I don't have any qualification or first hand knowledge/experience, however this is looking more and more like an unmitigated overreaction.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


We clamber into the Al-Shifa hospital complex in darkness over a caved-in wall in the perimeter - knocked through with an armoured bulldozer on Tuesday to allow safer access for Israeli forces.

Any extra light here is risky so we grope our way through the compound, following the heavily armed troops sent to escort us - stepping around makeshift tents, debris and sleeping people.

Doctors at the hospital say they have been working without power, food or water for days now - and that critically ill patients have died as a result, including newborn babies.

In the brightly lit corridors of the MRI unit, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus shows us three small stashes of Kalashnikovs, ammunition and bullet-proof vests - he says they have found around 15 guns in all, along with some grenades.

On the screens inside the military vehicle, the agricultural land morphed slowly into distorted streets strewn with large pieces of debris, and the blurred outlines of shattered buildings.

Just south of Gaza City, we stopped to change vehicles, clambering out on to undulating mounds of twisted metal and large chunks of rubble and concrete.


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