We’ve talked about this a lot over the past year; the necessity for Israel to militarily address humanitarian locations in Gaza – hospitals in particular – because hamas, which has absolutely no regard for its own people’s lives, uses them as centers for their terrorist activities.
In this regard, Arsen Ostrovsky, John Spencer and Brian L. Cox, writing for thehill.com, have just released an important article on these circumstances, and how Israel is dealing with them.
Here is how it starts:
Under International Humanitarian Law, it is a foundational principle that hospitals receive special protected status. For example, Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute prohibits “intentionally directing attacks against” hospitals provided “they are not military objectives.” Article 11 of the Second Protocol to the Geneva Conventions provides that medical units shall be “protected at all times.”
However, this protection ceases if they are “used to commit hostile acts.”
These rules of international law are recognized by Israel and implemented during its conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
Hamas, a ruthless terrorist organization, operates without any regard to the norms of international law or value of human life, with a longstanding practice of systematically embedding their operations in hospitals, using civilians as human shields and building military tunnels underneath hospitals.
Fifteen months into the war initiated by Hamas, there is hardly a hospital or medical facility in Gaza the terror group has not turned into a military command center, including the Kamal Adwan Hospital. There, Israel has detained over 240 Hamas terrorists, including some disguised as patients, and found caches of weapons, including guns and explosives. Each of these acts is an undisputed violation of the law of armed conflict.
Among the suspects taken for questioning was the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, who is suspected of being a Hamas terrorist leader, in addition to approximately 15 terrorists who infiltrated Israel during the Oct. 7 Massacre. In these circumstances, during which Hamas turned Kamal Adwan Hospital into a terrorist staging ground, the hospital lost its protected status under international law and become a legitimate target for military operations.
So what are Israel’s choices?
It can either leave the hospitals untouched, thus allowing the terrorists there free to conduct their murderous activities…
…or it can attack the hospitals to protect their citizens, and immediately be condemned by the world as murderers of doctors, nurses and sick people – the ones hamas uses as human shields.
Not a pretty choice, is it? But this is the hand Israel is dealt every day by hamas and its masters/financers/trainers in Tehran. With most of the world voicing its criticism/condemnation….of Israel, not hamas or Iran.
I’ll end with the obvious, simple question: You’re Israel: given these circumstances, what are you supposed to do?
Think about it.
