Israel accuses Hamas of launching attacks from inside Gaza hospitals – and signals it could target medical facilities
Israel accused Hamas of launching attacks from hospitals in Gaza, said this was a war crime and signalled that such action could make medical facilities a legitimate target.
A military spokesperson claimed the Israeli authorities had “concrete evidence” that hundreds of Hamas fighters who took part in the 7 October terrorist atrocity in southern Israel afterwards “flooded” into Shifa hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip.
“What we are doing now is putting a red flag to the world,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a news briefing.
“We are putting a red flag against the international law.”
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Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari of the Israel Defence Forces
The officer shared on a screen what he said was intelligence material proving that Hamas militants were commanding attacks against Israel from inside Shifa hospital.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claims.
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“He does his command and control in different departments of the hospital,” the spokesperson said, pointing to areas of the facility that were outlined in red.
“He uses these places in order to do command and control for terror activities, launching rockets.”
Rear Admiral Hagari showed what he said was a reconstruction of a network of underground tunnels that ran under the hospital.
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He alleged that it was possible to enter the tunnels from inside the hospital wards.
“Right now, terrorists move freely in Shifa hospital and other hospitals in Gaza,” the spokesperson said.
“Hamas’s use of hospitals is systematic… When medical facilities are used for terror purposes, they are liable to lose their protection from attack in accordance with international law.
“The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will continue making efforts to minimise harm to the civilian population and will continue to act in accordance with international law.”
Israel had shared its intelligence on hospitals with the intelligence agencies of its allies, the spokesperson added.
Another IDF spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, was asked by Sky News if the briefing was to soften the ground for the Israeli military to begin strikes on hospitals.
He said: “We have been telling people for the last two weeks to leave the north of the Gaza Strip.
“We’ve also made several calls to the Shifa hospital. Those calls have not been accepted and have not been responded to.
“And now we understand why, because Hamas is preventing people from moving, Hamas is limiting their capability, this is the reality we are facing.”
IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.
Asked if hospitals would no longer be afforded protection under international law, he said: “If these actions continue from hospitals, under certain conditions, hospitals could indeed lose the protections that they are entitled to.
“They (Hamas) have to leave hospitals, they have to let people leave hospitals, they can’t tell them to say and hold them hostage in hospitals.”
Meanwhile, a doctor from north London, who is currently working in Gaza, claimed the Israeli briefing was an “outlandish excuse” to target hospitals.
Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah said: “At the end of the day, what they need to be reminded of, continuously, by everybody, and press included, is that the targeting of any hospital is a war crime, regardless of what outlandish excuses they might provide.”
Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Asked if it was possible to evacuate a hospital like Shifa, he said: “How do you evacuate 1,700 critically injured patients? 150 ventilated patients?
“How do you evacuate over 100 patients with burns over 40% of their body surface area? And where do you evacuate them? And why should you?
“International humanitarian law was created to protect hospitals, protect them against this attack and this idea that if you tell people that you’re going to commit a war crime against them, somehow it becomes less of a war crime. It is a war crime.”
Israel’s defence minister has threatened to “take whatever measures necessary” to stop an aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg from reaching Gaza.
The climate campaigner, 22, is one of a dozen activists aboard the Madleen, which set sail from Sicily last Sunday on a mission aiming to break Israel‘s sea blockade.
The activists have said they plan to reach Gaza‘s territorial waters as early as Sunday to deliver humanitarian aid.
But in a post on X, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said he has instructed the IDF to prevent the vessel reaching shore and to “take whatever measures necessary”.
Addressing Thunberg and the other activists, he said: “You should turn back – because you will not reach Gaza.”
He wrote: “I have instructed the IDF to act so that the “Madeleine” hate flotilla does not reach the shores of Gaza – and to take any means necessary to that end.
“To the anti-Semitic Greta and her fellow Hamas propaganda spokespeople, I say clearly: You should turn back – because you will not reach Gaza.
“Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade or assist terrorist organizations – at sea, in the air and on land.”
Latest known position of the vessel
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Why is Greta sailing to Gaza?
Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament, who is of Palestinian descent, is also on the boat, which is operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
She has been barred from entering Israel because of her opposition to Israel’s policies towards Palestinians.
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Israel started allowing some basic aid into Gaza last month after a three-month total blockade aimed at pressuring Hamas and preventing the group from importing arms.
But humanitarian workers have warned of famine unless there is an end to the blockade and the 20-month war, which was ignited by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 Oct 2023.
An attempt last month by Freedom Flotilla to reach Gaza by sea failed after another of the group’s vessels was attacked by two drones while sailing in international waters off Malta.
The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship.
A British surgeon has told Sky News she has never treated or seen anyone in a Gaza hospital in military uniform – and the only people she has seen with weapons are the IDF.
Dr Victoria Rose, a NHS plastic surgeon who has experience working in Gaza, said conditions there are now the worst they’ve ever been.
“There’s been a real escalation in the bombing campaign,” she told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.
“The population is on their knees.”
Dr Victoria Rose in Gaza
Hospitals in Gaza have frequently come under Israeli military (IDF) fire – and sometimes find themselves besieged – in the ongoing war following Hamas’s October 2023 attacks on Israel.
Medical facilities are usually protected during conflicts under international law, but Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas uses them for command centres.
Asked about Israel’s allegations, Dr Rose said: “I’ve never treated or seen anyone – in any of the hospitals that I’ve worked in – in military uniform or with a weapon.
“The only people I’ve ever seen in Gaza with military uniforms and weapons are the IDF.”
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Dr Rose told Sky News about the impact of the war on hospital staff: “Lots of my Palestinian colleagues were telling me that they would rather die than carry on with this war.”
It comes as a controversial humanitarian organisation backed by Israel and the US said it did not distribute any food in Gaza on Saturday, accusing Hamas of making threats that “made it impossible” to operate. Hamas denied the claims.
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The Israeli blockade on aid going into Gaza has severely affected the population, she said, leaving them malnourished and without the nutrients they need.
Speaking about her last visit to a hospital in the enclave, she said: “Infection rates were soaring… We were seeing a lot of avoidable deaths, a lot of small children dying from sepsis that would have been prevented if they’d been in in the Western world.”
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Despite a limited lifting of the blockade by Israel – the head of the UN called it a “teaspoon” – the aid situation in Gaza remains dire.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is endorsed by Israel and the US, took over responsibility for distributing aid in Gaza, but has been criticised for lack of experience, organisation and faces allegations of assisting in ethnic cleansing by luring Palestinians to the south of the enclave if they want food.
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Why is Greta sailing to Gaza?
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Saturday the GHF operation has “utterly failed on all levels” and that Hamas was ready to help secure aid deliveries by a separate long-running UN-led humanitarian operation.
A Hamas source told Reuters the group’s armed wing would deploy snipers on Sunday to prevent armed gangs looting food shipments.
World
Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay in ‘critical condition’ after attempted assassination – as 15-year-old suspect arrested
A 15 year-old-boy has been arrested after a Colombian senator running to be the country’s next president was shot and “critically” injured at a campaign rally in Bogota, authorities have said.
Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, 39, was targeted during the campaign event in a park in the Fontibon area of the Colombian capital, according to the Attorney General’s office.
He suffered two gunshot wounds when armed assailants shot him from behind and appeared to be bleeding from his head as he was helped by aides and people in the crowd, in a video posted on social media.
According to a medical report at the Santa Fe Foundation hospital, he was admitted there in a “critical condition” and is still undergoing a “neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure”.
Opposition senator Miguel Uribe Turbay on 13 May. Pic: AP
His wife Maria Claudia Tarazone wrote on X that he is “fighting for his life” and urged Colombians to pray for him.
Two other people were injured but the nature of their injuries has not been made public.
A suspect, a 15-year-old boy, was arrested at the scene with a firearm and is being treated for a leg injury, police chief General Carlos Triana said.
The government is offering a $730,000 (£540,000) reward for information and President Gustavo Petro said the investigation will focus on who ordered the attack.
“For now there is nothing more than hypothesis,” he said, adding that failures in security protocols would also be looked into.
People gather outside the hospital where Mr Uribe Turbay is ‘fighting for his life’. Pic: Reuters
Mr Uribe Turbay, who announced his presidential bid for the right-wing Democratic Center Party in March, was accompanied by a team of 21 people at the time of the shooting, his office said, including councilman Andres Barrios.
He was hoping to run in the presidential elections taking place on 31 May next year – and succeed Mr Petro, the country’s first leftist leader.
His mother, who was a journalist, was kidnapped and killed in 1991 during one of the most violent periods in Colombia’s history.
Forensic investigators at the scene of Mr Uribe Turbay’s shooting in Bogota. Pic: AP
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His party described it as an “unacceptable act of violence”, while US secretary of state Marco Rubio condemned it in the “strongest possible terms”.
Writing on X, Mr Rubio also urged Colombia’s current president to “dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials”.
Police outside the hospital where Mr Uribe Turbay is being treated. Pic: AP
Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, who is not related to Mr Uribe Turbay, said the gunman had “attacked the hope of the country, a great husband, son, brother, and a great colleague”.
He cancelled a planned trip to France due to the “seriousness of the events”, his office said in a statement.
Messages of support poured in from elsewhere in Latin America, with Chilean President Gabriel Boric saying: “There is no room or justification for violence in a democracy.”
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa added: “We condemn all forms of violence and intolerance.”
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