Hamas defending their hospital-based headquarters with civilians
Nowhere is the evil of Hamas more evident than in their use of the largest hospital in Gaza City as a military headquarters. Put quite simply, that is a war crime.
Hamas’ use of vulnerable civilians as shields in conflict is cowardly … evil … and (worth saying again) a war crime. The terrorist organization uses the most vulnerable of people in the most vulnerable of situations – in a major hospital – as the location for a headquarters command center.
Al Shifa Hospital is not just a building. It is a several acre complex of buildings. Below the medical facility is the Hamas command center serviced by a web of tunnels.
In the open areas around the hospital buildings, Hamas had established tent cities for those fleeing the area impacted by the War. Ponder that. Hamas is packing the land above their military headquarters with thousands of civilians even as the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is warning people to leave that area.
It is also noteworthy that the underground Hamas headquarters continues to operate with fuel and electricity even as the Hospital above is denied those existential needs. Nothing new there. Hamas has had ample fuel in storage to provide for the basic needs of those hospitals, but has hoarded it for their own terrorist purposes.
The hospital medical staff are forced to lie about the existence of the Hamas facility. Some weapons have already been found stored in the hospital proper.
Conversely, the IDF is bringing medical supplies, generators and incubators into the hospital to enable the medical staff to carry out their life-saving missions for those physically unable to leave the Hospital. Arab speaking members of the IDF are on the scene to facilitate the delivery of the supplies.
Cynically, Hamas has been blocking civilian travel to southern Gaza even as Israel has established safe corridors and temporary pauses in attacks to facilitate the movement. When alive Hamas uses civilians as shields – and when killed, for public relations benefit.
While Israel is taking measures to minimize civilian casualties, Hamas engages in practices that maximizes them. It is said that when a Jew dies, Hamas celebrates – and when a Palestinian dies, Hamas celebrates.
Tragically, many more Palestinian men, women and children died than should have because Hamas used them has a wall of protection – and as pawns in their public relations campaign against the Israeli response to the savage attack on people from 32 nations residing and visiting Israel. The main focus of the Hamas attack was ironically a holiday peace festival.
There is little doubt that the IDF will eventually take control of the Al Shifa Hospital – and the underground Hamas military facility. The high number of civilian casualties in the War – and in the hospital compound — is the responsibility of Hamas and their disregard for human life on both sides of the conflict.
The just and necessary war against Hamas cannot be carried out without the unfortunate result of what the military cynically describes as “collateral damage.” It is a constant in all conflicts – from wars to terrorist attacks. The Irael-Hamas War is having a high number of civilian deaths because Gaza is a very crowded territory and Hamas is consolidating civilians around their high value military operations.
The relatively worthless United Nations should at least focus on the war crimes by Hamas instead of condemning the justified response by Israel. The world understands that entering into a ceasefire is not an option. And that this international terrorist backed war is only one phase of the existential worldwide battle against terrorism.
So, there ‘tis.
Good Article Larry, you stated it like it is.
It’s a shame we have so many ignorant people in this country who know absolutely nothing about world politics and history who believe the nonsense spewed by Hamas and their minions, including sitting US House and Senate members. The Palestinian people are not the enemy, their overlords (Hamas and their associates from around the Arab world) are. It is Israel’s right to defend itself and to wipe out any terroristic threat. It’s also a shame that the media, which spew slanted stories against Israel, doesn’t accurately report the facts like Hamas using human shields and the Palestinian deaths that Hamas is responsible for.
Hamas is following Nazi footsteps into pure evil.
Good article Larry, I agree with you one-hundred percent..
So Larry, we as your responders have just come off an article about abortion where you claim it is hard to be a Pro-lifer but a just cause. You advocate abortion is evil. You advocate that people who are pro-choice are misguided nice people. So I am wondering if you knew the outcome of that child as a killer terrorist, and you could go back in time to that terrorist’s conception, would you have given (or suggested) an abortion to the mothers of these evil terrorists that are using innocent people as shields and killing them, or would you insist that their life is sacred, they have a right to it (even though they will later take the right to life of innocents) and stand firm on not aborting them knowing that in the future they will kill the lives of innocents? If one of those innocents killed was your child of any age, would you still insist on them being born and growing up?
Tom … Thanks. I see you managed to segue abortion into a commentary about the Israeli-Hamas War. LOL You are asking me to hypothesize on a situation that could never happen. There is no way to know or predict the course of a life at the time of birth. I would need a time machine to go back in time to the pregnancy of that theoretical terrorist’s mother. By your challenge, I would ask what you would do if you could know that that aborted life would have become a scientist who cured cancer. Would you still allow the abortion in your 16 week window? In terms of the terrorist, would you disallow killing him because he is a breathing human? Honestly, I do not think your question is at all relevant to the issue of abortion.
Larry, I already said that you “could know the outcome of the life” and I said that you could ‘travel back in time.” So answer the question. Would you decide the abortion route or the right to life route knowing that the life you are saving will kill many innocents!?
I will happily answer your question once you answer mine. :>)
Gee, Mr. Horist, why are you so preoccupied with allowing and disallowing people to chart their own path? With their own bodies. With their own family? Who made you GOD to think you have the moral high ground to force these people to do what you want and not what they want?
Now you divert to possible outcomes. Let’s abort you and ask ourselves —— would it make a difference to the world? To God? To even you? You know, if a tree falls in the forest……
Their bodies, their life. Not yours.
And it’s both political and personal.
FYI: story is spot on, good to get low hanging fruit once in awhile. And yes, Tom’s was a tangent, and a baited one at that :>) Boy, did that hook sink in……..
I am glad Larry was not aborted. What would Chicago have done without him? Dems needed someone to practice victory on!
LOL, again you are right Frank. It was a tangent but with a purpose. If you go back to the Abortion discussion, Larry incorrectly asserted that if I am ok with abortion then I must be Ok with slavery in the 1800’s and Hitler’s killing of Jews in the 1940’s. I said to Larry in that discussion that it was absurd comparisons. Larry thought they were legitimate and well thought out comparisons for abortion. I disagree. 1) A woman getting an abortion does not involve institutional discrimination like slavery does, nor does it break up families, displace people, dehumanize them, and maim people as a form of discipline. 2) What Hitler did was “genocide” which has a very specific 5 point criteria according to the UN. Abortion does not meet any of the five points of genocide. I am shocked that Larry actually used this one after all of his whining about debasing because his comparison of Abortion to the Holocaust in my view debases the 6 million Jews that suffered inhumanely harsh conditions and then when not useful anymore, got slaughtered, often having to dig their own graves first.
Thus I found Larry’s comparison to be absurd, ridiculous, and not well thought out, sort of shooting from the hip while saying you cannot get to me.
Now my question was simple. It only involved the killing of innocent Palestinian people by Hamas, and the subject of abortion whereas I use Christian scripture in the Old Testament to define murder as between two living, sentient, breathing air on their own human beings so abortion does not qualify as murder. And all I wanted to know was that since Larry calls abortion murder, if he had the power and prior knowledge, would he abort a fetus that he has prior time machine knowledge will grow into a terrorist and kill many innocent lives, or would he stick to his morals and allow the fetal terrorist to grow into a fully mature terrorist bent on killing Jews and using Palestinians innocent people as children?
My point was to shift the abortion conversation where he IMO has no feeling for women in crisis pregnancy and shift it to a crisis that he can feel for, the slaughter of 1,200 Jews and 10,000 dead Palestinians. And I wanted to frame the abortion question and how firm he was on his morals when presented with a crisis in terms of a subject he could understand and feel for.
And as you see, Larry took the weasel way out, even stating that he would rather ask me a question than answer my question. And that was when I knew that my rod had bent and my reel was singing the hooked fish whine of the spindle song. :>)
Least you didn’t describe the imaginary Horist that is derived by many on a number of his screeds.
Tom … You should know better. I was not make an equivalency comparison between slavery, Nazi antisemitism abortion. They are three different things. BUT .. I did not the on thing they have in common. Each denied civil rights and even life based on a contention that the victims are inferior human subclass. Not as superior as those denying them their civil rights and even life — and that was a widely held belief at the time. So my question has been, is the developing human being inthe woman less than human. We know it is a developing human. It is’ not a blob of flesh — some sort of tumor or cyst. And at the times of many abortions is is taking on major human physical characteristics. Frank seems to think you can kill it any time before it exists the womb and breaths on its own. You seem to believe it gains civil rights and protection from termination after 16 weeks. I see your view as arbitrary and politically motivated and Frank’s view as inhumane. Correct me if I am wrong.
Tom .. since this commentary is about the war in Gaze, I am dropping out of the abortion discussion.
If Hamas is going to shield itself with civilians. Then those civilians have to pay the consequences of being on a battle field. They should have been smart enough to go elsewhere.
I STAND WITH ISREAL and hope they pound these ruthless HAMAS animals into the ground.