Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex, searching for Hamas terrorists who are suspected of using the hospital as cover for a massive underground headquarters.
Summary
Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex, searching for Hamas terrorists who are suspected of using the hospital as cover for a massive underground headquarters. In the US, 290,000 people gathered on the National Mall to support Israel.
- Israel said it was conducting a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the hospital” and Israeli forces brought medical supplies, specially-trained Arabic-speaking medical personnel, and other equipment for the hospital’s patients and staff.
- Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) personnel went room to room at the hospital accompanied by medics and translators interviewing all people inside the hospital including patients, staff, and displaced persons sheltering there.
- Israel has said Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City is located above the “beating heart” of Hamas, who purposefully built their headquarters beneath the complex. US intelligence assessments agree that there is a large operational center beneath Al-Shifa.
- In Washington DC approximately 290,000 supporters of Israel, Jews and Gentiles alike, gathered on the National Mall for the March for Israel in the largest gathering of American Jews in US history.
- Leading political figures of both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Mike Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, addressed the crowd and reiterated America’s solidarity with Israel in its war against Hamas.
- Palestinian doctor Khaled Abu Samra told CNN the hospital was given 30 minutes’ warning before Israeli forces arrived at the complex. Civilians at the hospital were urged to stay clear of windows and balconies and young men at the hospital were asked to surrender.
- The New York Times reported that while “Israeli soldiers briefly exchanged fire with gunmen outside the hospital before going in, a senior military official said, but more than 12 hours after it began, the operation appeared more like a police raid than a pitched battle.”
- NBC News covered comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he spoke with President Joe Biden earlier Wednesday. “We were told that we would not reach Gaza City. We did. We were told that we would not enter Shifa. We entered,” Netanyahu said. “There is no place in Gaza that we will not reach,” he added, “There is no hiding, no shelter, no refuge for the murderers of Hamas.” Netanyahu told Biden Israel would not stop until Hamas has been defeated.
- The Wall Street Journal covered US efforts to recover the hostages as fears grow about their safety. Top White House official for Middle East policy Brett McGurk has traveled to the region to join the negotiations – mediated by Egypt and Qatar – to release the approximately 240 people, including 9 Americans, being held captive by Hamas.
- The BBC “humiliates itself – again” with its coverage of the Israeli operation in Al-Shifa Hospital, wrote National Review’s Noah Rothman. Rothman explains: “The BBC had reported that ‘medical teams and Arab speakers were being targeted’ by Israel when, in fact, the precise opposite was the case. Funny story: It turns out that the BBC accidentally ‘misquoted a Reuters report’ in which the Israel Defense Forces revealed that they were embedding Arabic speakers and medical professionals with the forces tasked with clearing out the Hamas-occupied Al-Shifa Hospital, not summarily murdering them. Honest mistake, really. Could happen to anyone.”
- Commentary’s John Podhoretz described his experience on the ground at the March for Israel. “Everybody who was there speaks of the astonishing feeling that, in a crowd nearing 300,000, we ran into Ben right there, or Dan, or Rabbi Buchdahl, or my son, who had traveled separately with his school. It was more like a Fourth of July parade in a small town than it was the most populous single event in the history of American Jewry,” Podhoretz wrote. “But then, American Jewry is a small town in the midst of a big country, and we tend to forget that as we battle with each other politically and religiously and socially. In the end, we are from the same place, the same ancient place, and that place was attacked, and so we were attacked too. And we will not stand for it. And we did not. And we stood for what was right. Am Yisrael Chai.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
