…read this, from Suha Ma’ayeh and Dov Lieber’s article for the Wall Street Journal, via msn.com:
GAZA CITY—Heavily armed Hamas fighters seized the Jordanian Field Hospital complex in Gaza City last weekend after a gunbattle with a rival Palestinian group, re-establishing their control over what residents and Israel’s military said had long been a redoubt for the Islamist militants.
Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, ordered other Palestinians out of the hospital at gunpoint and took over the facility and surrounding neighborhood, said Mohammad Doghmosh, whose family is a powerful force in that part of the Palestinian enclave. “They took full control there,” he said. “They’ve brought their forces back in an extreme way.”
Members of the Doghmosh clan and Israel’s military said Hamas had turned a building on the hospital grounds into a base of operations and used a tunnel running adjacent to the medical center, which began operations in 2009.
As Israeli troops moved to occupy the area around the hospital, Hamas fighters fled. But once Israeli forces withdrew as part of a cease-fire deal that came into effect on Saturday, they flooded back in, Doghmosh said.
Israel says Hamas fighters have used hospitals as bases of operations, effectively seeking to use doctors and injured and sick civilians as shields against Israeli strikes. Israel’s military has taken journalists to see tunnels inside or near hospital compounds, including Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City and the European Hospital in Khan Younis.
Remember? Remember that hamas uses hospitals (not to mention schools and religious sites) as operational bases – which means that, to hit them, its opposition – whether Israel or Gazan – has to hit those places, and then be accused of the resulting hamas induced/created casualties?
I hope you do. Because a lot of people – either because of bad memories or a desire to blame anyone but hamas for the results of using civilians as human shields – seem to have forgotten.
Let’s keep reminding them, OK?
