Al-Shifa Hospital & the PR Twilight Zone

Applying logic in War time

Originally posted here:

https://twitter.com/ZimermanErik/status/1725903839109243058

Ok let’s tackle this Al-Shifa hot potato.

Regarding this ludicrous PR boondoggle, let me set the record straight. Or certainly attempt so.

Israel is responding to the Oct 7th Hamas invasion of Southern Israel and subsequent massacre (within the briefly conquered areas), in a fashion unprecedented in decades, reminiscent of a once bolder and better Israel. But old habits die hard, and it's PR efforts remain a sad heap of garbage.

They first assume as premises all the opposition's foundational arguments, and then attempt to pathetically topple their conclusion from there.

I have written at length about this phenomena for years, here just as an example was a rushed and frustrated piece regarding Hamas-led Gaza, and Israel's tragic PR towards it back in 2014.

In this case, the Israeli mistake has been accepting that a Hospital is somehow a special building, designated by the gods as outside the jurisdiction of the ruling powers that be. As if countries do not rule over Hospitals, the same way they rule over any other building within their jurisdiction and as if in the US and Western Europe one can flee to the hospitals and be outside the long arm of their law. Firemen, Police, regulators, the SWAT team etc. all freely enter Hospitals in just about any country on earth.

During war, even more so, as an invading army will certainly want to capture them, if for no other reason that they are large compounds within a city and an important part of the infrastructure. It will occupy or apply its rule over any and all buildings in an area it is trying to capture. The post office, the apartment buildings, the supermarket and the hospital. Nearly all buildings in a city are "civilian" buildings, as cities are not made up of "designated urban combat" buildings. The attacker wishes to capture a city (for whatever previously determined reasons), the defender chooses where he will resist from, and thus where there will be fighting.

The IDF does not fight buildings. Hamas fighters chose where they hide, & where they shoot from. Applying consistent logic, we have long discussed this absurd reporting regarding the Ukraine war.

https://twitter.com/ZimermanErik/status/1651627725247979531

As early as April 2022 (during the Russia Ukraine war) was arguing this point, and later in July with more detail:

https://twitter.com/ZimermanErik/status/1550534494624645122

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When Russia has seized control of cities and towns across Ukraine, it has also seized its Hospitals. When Ukraine has seized territory back it likewise has done so.

In their attempts to capture Fallujah in Iraq, US led coalition forces (Marines) fought to capture the city's main Hospital several times. It was also closed by Marines, and snipers placed on its roof.

During the later counter insurgency operations in the city, the hospital was re-taken in 2004 and ~50 men arrested within it. In late November, the US army was back with around 2,000 troops and air support. The New York times reported that within an hour of the start of the ground attack, the US seized the Fallujah General Hospital and that

Patients and hospital employees were rushed out of rooms by armed soldiers and ordered to sit or lie on the floor while troops tied their hands behind their backs.

Earlier during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the opposite charge was levelled at the coalition forces. Baghdad fell quickly, and the US forces did not protect the many sensitive sites around the capital. Hospitals were reported looted and ransacked, since the occupying power failed to take possession of them and secure them (ironically in both instances, that regarding the looting of Baghdad Hospitals due to staying away, as well as that regarding the various US operations in and around Fallujah hospitals, the US was accused by leftist media & others of Ch 18 & 19 Geneva Convention violations).

Israel would do everyone a favor, foremost itself, if it explained things more clearly, rather than more appeasingly.

Gaza is being invaded by the IDF. The reason for this is NOT that Hamas has an underground command center under this or that Hospital. It is not that it hides its AK-47's in Kindergartens. The reason that Israel is invading Hamas controlled Gaza, is due to the fact (or at least most recent fact) that it invaded Israel on October 7th. It invaded southern Israel by surprise attack and unfortunately succeeded in capturing many small communities where it pillaged, raped and murdered at will. It also started (and has continued daily since) targeting Israeli cities with thousands of missiles.

The Hamas invasion was murderous but weak (compared to Israel's strength), and so it was repulsed within a day or two. Israel is now invading Gaza in return, the only difference is that it is doing so with a less murderous (we do not kill every man, woman and child that we come across) but much stronger invasion. The Gazans can thus appreciate how a proper invasion is carried out.

In this effort, ALL buildings within Gaza city are to be captured. Post offices, supermarkets, clinics, hospitals and sewage plants. Whether there is fighting at a specific site is purely up to Hamas. If they would like to fight from Hospitals, then there will be fighting in Hospitals. If they would like to respect the civilian nature and neutrality of a hospital, then there no fighting will take place there. On the contrary, IDF troops (as has been seen already) will assist medical staff with our own medical professionals and supplies. No patients nor staff will be harmed. But the hospital will come under Israeli control, like ay other building, and the area subject to search for Hamas terrorists. Obviously.

It is no surprise that a surprise raid by special forces at Rantisi Hospital discovered more weapons, evidence of hostages and the like, then thus far has been found at Al-Shifa which has been the focus of media speculation for weeks, as well as a slow and deliberate IDF advance (plenty of time to clear out).

https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1724169252054188276

Despite this, quite a bit of military gear and weapons have already been found at Al-Shifa, Al-Quds and Rantisi hospitals. I suspect more may be found as they are searched more thoroughly (especially Al-Shifa), but this is truly irrelevant. The most reasonable thing that Hamas would have done in these conflicts would be to place command headquarters under hospitals. Why wouldn't it?

It does so, so that they do not get blown up by the IAF. Where else would they place them? In plain view?

They do not place them under hospitals so that we blow up the hospital but rather knowing our ethics, to make sure we don't blow up the command center nor the hospital over it (and in the unlikely case that we do, at least suffer severe blowback). Who cares?

While the operations remain Air-Only campaigns, this tactic works well for them. But in a ground invasion they are nullified. We can capture a Hospital as much as we can capture any other building. And while we do not want to hurt patients nor other civilians, we will not (or should not) be defeated by caring more about them then their own do. If Hamas wants to fight from Hospitals, then we will fight them at hospitals.

Hospital Hospital.

Israel would do well to stop playing their game, their PR game especially, and stop losing at it. It needs no further justification to capture and search a hospital than it does for any other square meter of Hamas controlled Gaza. The war is on; started by Hamas it will be Gd willing finished by us, and all of Hamas territory captured.

From what you hear from Israel's PR, you'd think all we want to do is deliver aid to Al-Shifa Hospital.

Apparently, we are just a medical aid delivering service, and we are trying to bulldoze ourselves through Gaza city with tanks and D-9's to deliver some incubators and baby food to Al-Shifa but Hamas keeps trying to stop us.

Most folks are pretty foolish, but there is a limit!

This entire episode would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic. A constant flurry of headlines, claims and counter-claims throwing the word “hospital” at each other without any apparent meaning. Hospital.. hospital, you hospital, no I hospital, good hospital, no bad hospital!

It is as sad as it is absurd. This is a war. We are taking Gaza (or certain parts of it). This includes all buildings within it. Where there is fighting depends on where the enemy resists from. Period. If they surrender the city, there will be no more fighting in the city. If they fight on, then there will.

Israel urged Gazan civilians to flee northern Gaza for weeks. Those who refused, those who house themselves with Hamas fighters, within or without a hospital, place themselves at risk (likewise the Hamas fighters place their people at risk).

When Hamas invaded Southern Israel on October 7th, and seized many communities, and murdered and kidnapped the people within them, it did not spare medical facilities. All clinics and medical facilities were fair game for them, though they did not want to merely assert control over them and search for IDF soldiers in the premise, but rather murder everyone within them.

In just one example, Amit Man, a 22 year old paramedic was holed up at the Be'eri clinic for 6 hours with others wounded in the attack. His sister posted long exchanges with him on her FB page. Amit kept hoping the army would take back the Kibbutz soon. Unfortunately, they did not do so in time. His last messages state that the terrorists were entering the clinic. His fate is unknown.

Hamas' invasion did not exclude medical facilities, nor should ours (though again ours is not a homicidal invasion, jut a regular one). Israel need not explain why it is approaching or taking Al-Shifa or any other Hospital. It is approaching and taking ANY building within Gaza.

This post was long enough, and don't intend a deep dive into international law (which is useless, exploited and arbitrarily enforced itself but for those interested, here...), but sufficed to say that the Geneva Conventions in Ch 18 and 19 express the well known practices that medical staff and facilities, if clearly marked & uniformed, should not be attacked themselves.

They do not in any way exclude a medical facility from falling into the jurisdiction of the occupying power (again, the fact that coalition forces did not place them under their control fast enough in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, itself led to claims of violating the Convention). They do however, indicate that a medical facility, loses its assigned protections if used for military purposes (as Hamas has done). But again, those protections are regarding the medical facilities and staff being attacked themselves, not regarding jurisdiction. Nothing in the Geneva conventions would mean that armed forces that capture a city could not or would not enter a Hospital (and even regulate it thereafter), and certainly not that the enemy may reside therein in safety as in a sacred sanctuary.

In that case, the violator would the Conventions would be the force hiding within the Hospital, and not the Force entering to find them.

Hospital Hospital PR war is idiotic (for Israel). We are not invading Gaza because we (Israel) object to the placement of their command centers, tunnels and AK-47s. They can place them wherever they want (and that is where we will attack & search for them). We are attacking them in response to (as well as direct continuation of the fighting that started with) their invasion of our southern communities where they went around butchering everyone they could get their hands on (while sparing a few kidnapped in an attempt to acquire human shields to protect themselves form our response).

The ease at which they drag the conversation, with Israel’s PR machine like a faithful dog coming right along, down into incoherent platitudes with humanitarian sounding terminology is simply stunning. Thankfully our soldiers are much better at fighting than our politicians and spokesmen are at playing the victim.