Hospitals can be protected in war
The Gaza War: More Than 11,000 Dead and 1,400 Including Israeli Deaths in the First Five Years of the Israeli-Gaza War
“We are still seeing extensive, new damage happening in the northern Gaza region,” says Scher. The researchers noticed a lull in damage from bombardments between October 25 and October 29, before Israel’s ground invasion. But in the most recent satellite data update, from Nov. 5, damage again appears to be widespread and growing.
This is all part of the larger debate over civilian casualties. More than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza since fighting began Oct. 7, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. Most of the 1,400 dead in Israel from the Oct. 7 Hamas attack were also civilians, according to Israeli officials.
The health ministry says at least 52 mosques have been damaged since the beginning of the conflict. At least 66 people have been killed, hundreds are injured and 50 of the UNRWA’s installations have been hit with airstrikes or bombs in Gaza.
Van Den Hoek has been studying this imagery since the war’s start and he says it’s increasing steadily. “There’s broad damage in areas where people live — cities, refugee camps.”
The Gaza Strip is a safe haven for the underground terrorist group: Israeli airstrikes hit Hamas militants in the sunday and early morning
The narrow section of land between Israel and Egypt is known as the Gaza Strip. Its footprint is roughly equal to that of the city of Philadelphia, but with a half million more people, many packed into concrete high-rises in tight cities up and down the coast.
It’s difficult to say how many people still live in the north of the Gaza Strip. In 57 schools across northern Gaza, the UN estimates more than 160,000 displaced people are being sheltered. Some 117,000 people who were displaced have settled in hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza. The World Health Organization said on Oct. 29 that “evacuation of hospitals is impossible without endangering patients’ lives.”
Bombing raids have increased in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military is stationed. To destroy Hamas so it can’t attack Israelis, the Israeli military is fighting. Hamas has long been designated a terrorist group by the US, Israel, and the European Union.
Late on Saturday, bombs fell on Al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing at least 45, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The Israeli military said Sunday it was checking out if or not it was active at that time. Nearby, The Associated Press reports that Israeli airstrikes struck near Bureij refugee camp, killing at least 13.
On Friday, Israel struck an ambulance convoy at Gaza’s largest medical facility, Al-Shifa Hospital, killing at least 13, according to the World Health Organization. The ambulance was struck by the Israeli military as it was being used by a Hamas cell. Gaza militants use ambulances to transport operatives, according to Israel.
Israel must give a hospital due warning and allow a time limit to see if the attacks stop, according to theGeneva Conventions.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that hospitals were used as a shield for the underground terror complex.
A lawyer who served in the Israeli army as a top legal advisor on military operations said this is a win-win strategy for Hamas.
“Either Israel refrains from attacking this [Hamas] military infrastructure because civilians might get killed. Or Israel does attack. Civilians get killed and the whole world puts pressure on Israel,” said Sharvit Baruch, now with the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
“The Israeli military has been launching explosive weapons in densely crowded city blocks, causing tremendous civilian harm. Bashi said that it was predictable.
The Israeli War on Hamas: Military and Civilian Response to Israel’s Oct. 17 Explosion in the Parking Lot of Shifa
Medical units are not to be used in an attempt to protect military objectives from attack, according to 1977 additions to the international rules of warfare.
Any response would have to be proportional. A lone gunman firing from a hospital wouldn’t give an army the right to destroy the entire building, according to lawyers.
The former Israeli military lawyer, Sharvit Baruch, spent years working with Israeli commanders as they compiled target lists during times of relative calm.
The first was an Oct. 17 explosion in the parking lot of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. The Palestinians said there were many killed and blamed the Israelis. Israel denied involvement, saying the cause was an errant rocket fired by Palestinian militants. U.S. and other intelligence agencies also investigated, and said the evidence pointed to a Palestinian rocket.
At least some of the casualties were among the thousands of Palestinians who are camping out on the grounds of Shifa and other hospitals, hoping they will provide at least a bit more safety than other places in Gaza, a territory under almost round-the-clock bombardment.
Sari Bashi said Human Rights Watch is investigating this attack on Shifa hospital, noting Israel said the Hamas fighters were leaving the hospital, not attacking from it. She said that Israel did not give any warning of the strike.
“These are the kinds of rules that all the nations in the world have agreed to,” she said. The Israeli military is not accepting those rules, even on its own statements.
In addition, Hamas has always targeted Israeli civilians, from scores of suicide bombings in the 1990s and early 2000s, to its Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.
The group holds about 240 hostages, most of them civilians, and during the past month, has fired thousands of rockets in ongoing attacks directed at civilians in Israeli cities.
Over 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza Strip since fighting between Israel and Hamas started on October 7, mostly civilians, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. On Saturday, bombs fell on al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing at least 45. On Friday, Israel struck an ambulance convoy at Gaza’s largest medical facility, Al-Shifa Hospital, killing at least 13, according to the World Health Organization.