Israeli tanks approach a Palestinian hospital. Doctors and medical staff are being told they must leave – with or without patients in need. Artillery attacks ensue, although thousands of people are still inside.
On Monday, it was the turn of the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza. At least 12 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the facility, even as armored vehicles move ever closer to the hospital.
But it is only the latest medical center to face the wrath of the Israeli army.
Six weeks after the start of the war on Gaza, Israeli attacks on hospitals have become almost a motive for the conflict, although refugee camps, schools and churches have not been spared either. At least 21 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals – including the Strip’s only cancer center – are completely out of service, and others have been damaged and lack essential medicines and supplies.
On Sunday, 31 premature babies were evacuated from al-Shifa hospital to Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, after being fed for weeks on formula mixed with contaminated water, without incubators that could are stopped due to lack of fuel caused by the almost complete siege of Israel. on the enclave since the Hamas attack on October 7. At least eight babies had already died.
Israeli forces have occupied al-Shifa since last week after bombing parts of the hospital. Like other hospitals in Gaza, al-Shifa housed thousands of civilians displaced by Israeli bombing, in addition to patients and doctors.
On Friday, the Israeli military extended its approach in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, where armored vehicles surrounded at least four hospitals. Ibn Sina hospital, one of the largest in the West Bank, was raided. And in early November, Israeli forces arrested some patients and their companions at a hospital in East Jerusalem.
But why is Israel targeting Palestinian hospitals, when it also draws heavy criticism from leading human rights organizations, who accuse it of war crimes?
Let them know: “Nowhere is safe”
Officially, Israel insists it targets facilities housing Hamas fighters or infrastructure.
Israel claimed, for example, that Hamas used al-Shifa as its command center. But Hamas denied the claim, and days after taking control of the facility, Israel was unable to provide solid evidence to support its claims.
The real reason Israel targets hospitals is different, according to Omar Rahman, a member of the Doha-based Middle East World Affairs Council. It’s a form of psychological warfare, he said.
“Attacking hospitals shows the population that nowhere (Palestinians) are safe,” Rahman told Tel Aviv Tribune, adding that Israel acts with “total impunity.”
Tahani Mustafa, senior Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group, said making Palestinians feel insecure in every settlement in the Gaza Strip aims to suppress any form of resistance.
“This is part of a long-standing pattern of harassment against medical staff and services, in which Israel demonstrates to Palestinians that no one or any space is safe,” Mustafa told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“This is a systematic attempt to intimidate local populations and undermine their will to resist,” she added.
Throughout the war, Israel has targeted a number of ambulances and medical facilities in the West Bank and Gaza, claiming that Palestinian fighters used them for transportation and shelter, without providing evidence to support this. support these claims, the analyst said.
Green light from the United States
Israel also targets civilian buildings like hospitals because it can get away with it, said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
“The only scrutiny and limits imposed that matter are those that come from the United States,” Parsi told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“Israel’s calculation is that international outcry does not matter as long as the United States refuses to impose limits on Israeli actions,” he added.
In the absence of this pressure from the United States, combined with the “most extremist” and right-wing government Israel has ever had, “the Israelis are taking advantage of the opportunity to do things they could not not do otherwise,” Parsi explained.
Yet as the war continues, the United States may be forced to urge its allies to reduce the ferocity of its attacks as its image deteriorates around the world.
“The standing and credibility of the United States in the world is collapsing due to its green light for Israeli actions of this type,” Parsi said.
“It may not last long, because the damage this is causing in the United States is simply intolerable.”