The @WashingtonPost's investigation about Shifa Hospital misses the real story

On Thursday, the Washington Post published an investigation  casting doubt on whether Shifa Hospital in Gaza was being used as a Hamas command center.

Its top major finding: "The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas."

The key to the story is the word "immediate:"

“The law is about what was in the mind of the attacker at the time the attacker planned and executed the mission with respect to both what they expected the collateral damage they expected to cause and the military advantage they anticipated gaining,” said Michael Schmitt, an emeritus professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

The IDF would not comment on the military advantage sought or achieved.

“What was the urgency? This is not yet being demonstrated,” said Yousuf Syed Khan, a senior lawyer with Global Rights Compliance, a law firm, who has drafted U.N. reports on siege warfare.

While the underground tunnel uncovered by Israeli forces after the raid does point to a possible militant presence underneath the hospital at some point, it does not prove that a command node was operating there during the war.

“We’re getting more of a granular, three-dimensional understanding of al-Shifa Hospital, the tunnels underneath it,” said Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department and now a senior adviser at Crisis Group.

“What we’re really lacking here is a confident understanding of the fourth dimension, which is time. When were various elements of the hospital being used in certain ways? When were the tunnels beneath the hospital complex being used in certain ways?”

The Washington Post has its doubts:

The bare, white-tiled rooms showed no immediate evidence of use — for command and control or otherwise. There are no signs of recent habitation, including litter, food containers, clothing or other personal items.  

Let's look at the context.

Hamas' use of the hospital for military purposes was well known as early as 2006. Even the Washington Post itself wrote in 2014 that it  “has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” 

Israel had built bunkers under the hospital when Gaza was under Israeli control, but bunkers aren't tunnels. However, we know that there were tunnels under Gaza's Al Wehda Street that were bombed in the 2014 war, and that street leads directly to the hospital compound. Given that Hamas built hundreds of tunnel shafts underneath their offices and leaders' homes, it is apparent that there were connections between Hamas offices in the hospital basement and the tunnels under Al Wehda Street.

Israel might not have revealed the specific locations of each shaft, and that is hardly important considering that there is no doubt that these tunnels existed directly underneath a hospital.

Just as there is no doubt that the only purpose of these tunnels, underground rooms and bathrooms is military. They aren't hotels or summer camps.

The IDF first laid out a specific series of accusations about the Shifa Hospital on October 27, nearly three weeks before the raid, before the ground war even began. There were unofficial discussions of Shifa Hospital before that. It didn't show "urgency" - it showed unheard-of patience before moving in.

Hamas knew the IDF was coming for them. And they had weeks to clear out and clean up the evidence from the tunnels (even though they left behind plenty of weapons on the hospital grounds themselves, which were harder to clean up since there were so many people around.)

Here's the part that no one is talking about: The IDF knew quite well that they were giving Hamas a heads up that they were coming. They knew Hamas would not stay and it would hide evidence of explicit military use. So why give the warning at all? Why not surprise Hamas? What army tells the enemy where they will be going?

The warning was meant to force Hamas commanders to move to other areas. 

This achieves three military aims. Firstly, it  disrupts their operations temporarily. Secondly,  it allows the IDF to go there, gather evidence and valuable intelligence like footage from cameras, and destroy the military infrastructure beneath Shifa without a firefight and endangering patients and civilians taking shelter. And thirdly, Hamas leaders moving to other areas allows Israel to attack them without worrying about the complexity of protecting hospital patients during a battle.

Israel has now released evidence that Hamas brought hostages to Shifa. The tunnels had electricity and plumbing that were attached to Shifa's infrastructure. Weapons were found in the radiology ward and in a garage on Shifa's grounds. We know that employees and even directors at other hospitals were also Hamas terrorists. The Gaza health ministry is Hamas and it admits its officials have Hamas military rank. While there might not be direct evidence of Hamas using those tunnels underneath Shifa in mid-November as their main headquarters, no one can seriously doubt that Hamas used the hospital for military purposes and that the reason was to use the patients as human shields. 

Israel managed to clear Hamas out of the hospital it was using for military purposes with a minimum of fighting and a minimum of physical destruction. That is not violating international law - it is adhering to it in ways far beyond the limited imaginations of those whose entire worldview is poisoned by always assuming malevolence from Israel.

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Terrorists hiding behind children doesn't make them immune to attack, morally or legally

Israel haters were given a huge gift this week courtesy of anti-government protester Shira Eting.

Eting, interviewed by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes, said, "I was a combat helicopter pilot…. If you want pilots to be able to fly and shoot bombs and missiles into houses knowing they might be killing children, they must have the strongest confidence in the people making those decisions."

The modern antisemites have been having a field day with an attractive and articulate Israeli woman matter of factly saying that Israelis knowingly shoot missiles into homes that kill children. Here we have proof of how monstrous Israelis are - even leftist Israelis!

A number of years ago, I looked at a B'Tselem report on families killed in their homes during 2014's Operation Protective Edge. Even that incomplete report showed that many families were acting as human shields for the terrorists - sometimes the shields were the terrorists' own families, and sometimes the terrorists were sheltering in an innocent family home. 

I did further research and listed over a hundred children who were used as human shields to protect terrorists, often senior terrorists.

This is only what I could find out with open source research. But it proves the point: Israel is not going to bomb a house unless it has excellent intelligence that the house is a legitimate military target. Perhaps a senior terrorists is inside, perhaps a weapons cache is underneath, perhaps a command and control center is in the apartment next door. 

As long as the military advantage outweighs the collateral damage, this is a moral decision and also legal under international law.  While we are not privy to the specific calculus that Israel uses in making those decisions, it employs teams of lawyers to review every airstrike and goes to great lengths - never reported in the media - to ensure that it minimizes mistakes. Israel goes above and beyond the requirements of the Laws of Armed Conflict in its own policy decisions. 

Eting caused more harm to Israel with her out of context quote than the proposed judicial reforms she is protesting could possibly do. But she wasn't wrong in what she said: in the real world, in real wars, decisions must be made that sometimes mean children would die. 

In the case of Gaza, that is entirely the fault of the terrorists who deliberately choose to locate military targets in residential areas. 

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UN reluctantly admits that terror groups put Palestinian children at risk

Every year, Lynn Hastings, the UN Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, issues a press release before the school year discussing how Israel and Jewish settlers have been awful to Palestinian children.

This year, as far as I can tell for the first time, the press release also mentions a couple of ways that Palestinian terror groups are endangering Palestinian children..

Physical barriers placed by Palestinians in refugee camps, some rigged with explosive materials, are threatening the safety of children and making it harder for them to reach their classrooms.  And reports continue of children being enrolled in “summer camps” by armed groups, increasing their risk of being exposed to violence or military content.   

I've mentioned that the IEDs that Palestinian terror groups have been placing on the roads of camps in order to blow up Israeli vehicles are a danger to ordinary Palestinians, but this is the first time I have seen any NGO mention the danger, even if it downplays the danger.

Similarly, even though these "summer camps" have been run by terror groups for decades, this is the first time I have seen the UN say anything negative about them. The sentence is comical: "increasing their risk of being exposed?" That is the entire purpose of the camps, and there are lots of videos and photos showing the children with real or mock weapons!

Hastings fails to mention that most of the "children" killed by Israel this year were either child soldiers recruited by terror groups or were actively engaged in attacks. 

Perhaps the UN felt forced to mention Palestinian responsibility towards the children's welfare because it has had to admit that it couldn't open up schools in the Lebanese Ein el-Hilweh camp because of terror groups that have taken over the schools.

Although there is plenty wrong with this press release, it is  a slight improvement over the obsessively one-sided anti-Israel propaganda of the past.

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Horrifying: Palestinian terror groups use children to build and plant their explosives

PCHR reported on July 3 that Israeli forces shot Ali Hani Al-Ghoul in the chest, killing him. It admitted that he was a member of an armed group and said he was 20 years old.

Later, the Israel/Palestine Timeline site said that al-Ghoul was shot in the head, and that he was 17 years old.

His mother was interviewed:

His mother brought back some of her memories with her little Ali, which she will never forget; She says, "About two years ago, Ali used to come home at night, with his clothes dusty and his eyes red, and he was suffering from severe pain, which was caused by the explosive materials he was using."

"Ali was one of the resistance fighters who made explosive devices in the Jenin camp from primitive materials, but their impact was great and effective by damaging many Israeli military vehicles," according to his mother, who expressed her pride in what her son did and what his friends say about his actions that are beyond his age.

That means that Ali al-Ghoul had been building bombs since he was 15 years old.

Now, the Jenin Brigades division of Islamic Jihad have issued a video celebrating Al-Ghoul's "martyrdom" - showing him building IEDs together with other children. 

It doesn't show anyone else's faces, but you can see that the hands that are stuffing explosive powder into IEDs are not those of full grown adults. 

Jenin's bomb-makers are children.

Ali's mother continues: “Before Ali left the house, he carried a sack full of explosive devices on his shoulder, and later he planted them in the streets and alleys of Jenin camp with the help of his friends, who confirmed that Ali participated with them in a confrontation with the occupation from zero distance."

Palestinian terror groups recruit children to build bombs.

They encourage kids to turn their homes into bomb depots.

They instruct children to plant these bombs in the roads of Jenin where they can kill not only the children but anyone who happens to come by.

And they freely and proudly admit this.

This is not just child abuse: this is systemic and widespread child abuse that is a source of pride to Palestinians.

Now listen to the silence from UNICEF, the UN Human Rights Council, Defense for Children-International, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.  

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Jenin militants sprinkled explosives on their own roads. Where are the anti-landmine activists? (UPDATE)

The Times of Israel reported last week during the Jenin operation:

The Israel Defense Forces says troops located and destroyed at least 11 improvised explosive devices hidden along roads in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

Operatives of terror groups “are planting IEDs and bombs on the roads in the refugee camp and in the city, in a civilian environment. This poses a threat to the security forces who use the roads in counterterrorism activities and to innocent people who also use them,” the IDF says in a statement.

The military says that during the last few hours, dozens of combat engineering vehicles have been combing the streets for such IEDs.

This is confirmed by the Washington Post:

One long street was plowed like a farm furrow where Israeli bulldozers had intentionally detonated explosives embedded in the pavement.

Embedded explosives in the ground are pretty much the definition of landmines. The Jenin terrorists are burying landmines in their own town, where their own people could be killed.

If the mines can be triggered by a person, they are considered illegal under the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.

It sure looks like many of these IEDs can indeed be triggered by someone stepping on them. Here is a relatively small one being detonated by the IDF.

I have yet to see a condemnation by any NGO or state about Palestinians putting their own people at risk of being blown up by these IEDs. 

Israel's clearing of the mines is considered a bigger crime than the mines themselves. 

Which tells you a lot.

UPDATE: The "State of Palestine" acceded to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, which proves yet again that the only reason they signed these conventions was to be accepted as a state, but had no intention to actually do anything to adhere to the various conventions' rules. (h/t Ian)

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The Washington Post documented a war crime in Nablus - but it was done by Palestinians, not Israelis

This frame appears to show a muzzle flash, but the WaPo can't see it.

The Washington Post has an article that they believe damns IDF troops - and they are so excited about it they took away the paywall so everyone can see their computer-modeled 3D analysis.

They did indeed document a war crime, but not the one they are pretending to have uncovered.

Israeli security forces in an armored vehicle fired repeatedly into a group of civilians sheltering between a mosque and a clinic after a Feb. 22 raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, killing two people, including a teenager, and wounding three others, according to witnesses and a visual reconstruction of the event by The Washington Post.

For all the fancy 3-D modeling and hundreds of photos they claim to have used, the newspaper relies completely on one video, taken from above, showing a man with his arm extended with what appears to be a gun, and then running for cover. It is in the third part of this video:

The newspaper tries to claim that there is no evidence that the gunshot one can hear was from that gun, and even says, " The videos reviewed by The Post do not clearly show whether the man had a gun or fired, and none of the witnesses interviewed by The Post said they saw a gunman fire at the Israelis." Yet there appears to be a muzzle flash at the very beginning of the video (see photo above.)  It is ignored by the Post.

They consult two experts about the two bangs heard, who say wildly different things: one says that they are not gunshots at all, and the other says they are gunshots but come from the Israelis, without saying how he could make such a distinction. 

If two experts cannot even agree if a sound is gunfire or not, then what value do they add? The answer is that the WaPo can claim that they consulted audio experts when coming up with their foregone conclusion, even when they don't agree on anything!

When you look at the video of the man who appeared to be pointing a weapon then running to where the civilians are trying to avoid gunfire, it is obvious that he is holding something heavy like a gun. If his hands were empty he would not be running with his arms close together in front of him; his arms would be pumping at his sides the way normal people run.

Moreover, the civilians are running away before the IDF vehicle is shooting anything. (Look at the ones in the sunken plaza.) It appears they are running away from previous Palestinian gunshots, not Israeli.

The nature of open source forensics is that they are necessarily incomplete. We have no idea if there are any gunmen in the building behind the civilians, or on surrounding roofs, or across the street that may have shot the victims. The IDF did certainly fire in this video; we can see that some shots hit the pillar.  But even if the IDF did shoot at the gunman and accidentally hit the victims, it is not a war crime. It is a split-second decision based on the information the soldiers had - they were being shot at, the gunman went for cover behind a stone pillar, and they were responding to the likelihood that the gunman would resume shooting at them as they passed the pillar. It is unclear that the soldiers even saw the civilians on the top of the stairs before the gunman ran to cover behind the pillar.

The entire life and death decision needed to be evaluated and made in fractions of a second.

Under the laws of armed conflict, while the existence of civilians is one factor to be weighed in such a decision,  it is not the only factor. Troops are allowed and expected to defend themselves. A known gunman who runs for cover behind a pillar and who is about to be in line of sight is certainly a legitimate military target. 

In peacetime, police are held to this higher standard of doing everything possible to avoid accidentally hitting civilians even if it means the gunman gets away. For armed conflicts, the laws are different. But the Washington Post doesn't say that  - their entire article is geared towards the idea that the IDF had no right to target an armed man who was hiding among civilians. (And they know quite well that the civilians were not the intended targets.)

Isn't it interesting that the Post spent weeks and used four reporters with several experts consulted, and yet didn't even ask an international law expert whether Israel violated the laws of armed conflict? 

And that brings up the other omission in the Washington Post's coverage: the armed man ran for shelter among civilians, making them into human shields. I mean this literally - he placed himself behind civilian bodies knowing that he was a target, possibly even shoving one person aside. And that really is a war crime!

Apparently,  the reporters know quite well that the IDF didn't violate any laws. And that the Palestinian gunman did. And they don't want their readers to know that.

Remarkably, whenever the news media spends lots of time and money putting together elaborate 3D models of something involving Israel, it is always to say Israel is guilty. They try to replace honest investigations with razzle dazzle. And they are nearly always wrong.

When you put it all together, this article, like the others, is not meant to illuminate the truth, but to obfuscate it. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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