For weeks, international humanitarian NGOs working out of Al Shifa Hospital claimed there was no Hamas activity in the hospital.
That, of course, was a lie. The journalists who have reviewed IDF evidence have stated that there is no way these NGOs didn't know.
I couldn't help but be reminded of something…
In 1944, the Red Cross wrote to American diplomat Roswell McClelland, alleging that, while they had visited Auschwitz, they did not find any evidence of "extermination installations."
Anyone that knows anything about Auschwitz knows this is a lie. The stench of the crematoria was so strong that there was no way to miss it.
STATEMENTS FROM NGOs
“We have seen no evidence that the hospital buildings or the compounds are being used by Hamas as a military base.” - Doctors Without Borders
“Hospitals and medics must be protected at all times.* No one should be conducting hostilities near hospitals.” - Amnesty International
Interesting, given Amnesty wrote about Al-Shifa being used by Hamas in both 2014 and 2015.
“The Israeli military on October 27 claimed that ‘Hamas uses hospitals as terror infrastructures,’ publishing footage alleging that Hamas was operating from Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa…These claims are contested. Human Rights Watch has not been able to corroborate them, nor seen any information that would justify attacks on Gaza hospitals.” - Human Rights Watch
* As per Rule 97 of International Humanitarian Law, bombing civilian “protected” targets such as hospitals, schools, mosques, and more is a war crime. However, these civilian areas can lose their protected status if they are used for military purposes.
BUT WAIT…
CCTV footage of Hamas dragging Nepalese hostages into Al-Shifa Hospital. Notice the crowd and the doctors.
"When I was first asked to work there [at Shifa], I was told there was a part of the hospital I was not to go near, and if I did, I’d be in danger of being shot…implicit was that it was being used for non-medical purpose…I stayed away, but I saw a few dodgy-looking non-medical characters going in and out all the time…I was welcome everywhere else, and as I say, the doctors and nurses there were very welcoming and very kind, and the hushed tones under which this was said were consistent with all the other hushed tones with which Hamas was discussed."
Former UK doctor at Al-Shifa
THE MASSIVE TUNNEL COMPLEX UNDER AL-SHIFA
While Palestinian civilians suffer above them, Hamas operates under civilian areas in an intricate 311 mile (500 km) network of tunnels. These are not unverified Israeli claims or mere speculation. As Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said on television on October 30, "These tunnels are meant to protect us from airplanes. We are fighting inside the tunnels."
Now that the IDF is at Al-Shifa, it has invited the international press to see the evidence. The existence of the massive tunnel complex under Al-Shifa has now been corroborated by journalists from the BBC, CNN, Iran International, Reuters, the Associated Press, Fox News, and more.
“There's no way the hospital's managers didn't know what was going on,” wrote Haaretz journalist Yaniv Kubovich, who also visited the tunnels.
IT GETS WORSE
The media has known for quite some time that Hamas’s headquarters were located under Al-Shifa Hospital, though this war, they’ve all seemed to suffer from a case of collective amnesia. Tablet Magazine wrote an exposé about Hamas’s HQ at Al-Shifa in 2014. The Washington Post wrote about it too, also in 2014. The Guardian met with Hamas officials at the hospital. So did the Wall Street Journal. As early as 2006, PBS aired footage of Hamas terrorists roaming the hospital halls. As mentioned in a prior slide, Amnesty International wrote of Hamas’s use of Al-Shifa Hospital in 2014 and 2015, before mysteriously denying it in 2023.
None of this was ever a secret. So why have international NGOs been lying for Hamas?
EXPOSING HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
This November, an outgoing Human Rights Watch senior editor named Danielle Haas wrote an email to her coworkers, lambasting HRW for its biased and unethical approach to the Israel, claiming that the organization’s approach to Israel “violated basic editorial standards related to rigor, balance, and collegiality.”
She also wrote of the organization mistreating her because she is Jewish, and her senior manager agreed that that was probably the case. She is not the first HRW employee to make such accusations.
On November 23, 2023, a leaked document obtained by the Middle East Media Research Institute found that HRW has received millions from the Qatari government, which HRW has denied. Qatar is Hamas’s main financier.
THEN THERE'S THE UNITED NATIONS
I’ve written extensively about the United Nation’s blatant antisemitic bias, but for this post, I will focus exclusively on recent events. For more on the UN, I recommend my posts THE UN: AN ANTISEMITIC INSTITUTION and UNRWA.
UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, has long been a Hamas mouthpiece. In a now-deleted Twitter thread, UNRWA wrote, that on October 13, Hamas terrorists claiming to belong to the Gaza Ministry of Health stole aid intended for Palestinian refugees. In other words, the United Nations very well knows that Hamas embeds itself into healthcare institutions. Of course, the UN and its World Health Organization has spent the past seven weeks castigating Israel for its operations in and around Al-Shifa.
On November 25, Israel released photographic evidence of an UNRWA employee’s badge next to his Hamas military gear. This has yet to be independently confirmed.
WHAT WE KNOW FOR SURE
Despite the preponderance of independently verified evidence, the world’s largest and most “reputable” NGOs have been caught lying for Hamas…or at the very least, looking the other way for Hamas.
This is particularly infuriating given that at least two hostages were dragged into the hospital, one of them with his leg blown off, while onlookers watched and men in doctor’s scrubs helped. Additionally, the bodies of two killed Israelis, Yehudit Waiss and Noa Marciano, were found at the Al-Shifa compound.
This, as mentioned in the third slide, is reminiscent of the behavior of the Red Cross during the Holocaust (of note: most international NGOs didn’t exist during the Holocaust, but we can only speculate as to how they would have behaved). Though the Catholic Church isn’t an “NGO,” per se, it did very much look the other way and even aided Nazis at the end of the war. Entire nations and organizations caved to Nazi propaganda in the lead up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
It’s important to remember that NGOs are made up of people, and people have bias, including antisemitic bias, which is so old that it’s deeply embedded into our institutions.
We also know that Hamas harasses and obstructs journalists, and international journalists report threats to their lives if they dare to publish content outside of the official Hamas party line. Journalists suspected of collaborating with Israel are harassed, jailed, and tortured. It’s fair to assume then that Hamas takes a similar attitude toward NGOs.
According to a follower, whose close relative worked for an NGO in Gaza, “…even before Hamas ruled, the level of intimidation, threats, and pressure to hide information was undeniable.”
For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Patreon.