Who bombed Gaza Hospital?

Question the world still asks: ‘Who bombed Gaza hospital?’

Sunday Times lk 22-10-23

‘Eye for an eye’ makes Israel-Hamas both blind to the full horror of war

Israel showed on Tuesday it had lost none of its Judaist zeal to claim an eye for an eye in revenge for Hamas’ first strike against Israeli civilians on their day of fast following the nightfall end to the Jewish religious celebration of Sukkot on October 6. 

The conflict kicked off on October 7 when hundreds of armed Hamas fighters crossed a border security fence and indiscriminately mowed down Israeli civilians and soldiers taken by surprise.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in the attack, including children. A further 203 have been taken hostage by Hamas.

The Israeli retaliation to quench its revenge thirst came in the early hours of Tuesday morn.

It was expected but none could have foreseen or dreamt the chosen target. But it was, perhaps, most exquisitely apt in Israeli eyes. Both Hamas and the Israelis subscribed to the ancient ‘eye for an eye’ principle of Talion.

Out of all the soft targets in the Gaza Strip, the choice of a civilian hospital, al-Ahli Arab, to bomb to wreak revenge for Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians may have seemed, in Israeli eyes, the best way to convey the message home that would make Hamas understand its clear import in no uncertain terms.

But to the world that awoke with shock on Tuesday morn, it was perfectly clear that the exchange of missiles by the two warring factions had left them both completely blind. In the wake of the Hamas attack, the tide of world sympathy had drifted at first towards Tel Aviv but with the horror of the hospital bombing, it soon turned to one of outrage. Sympathies now surged and raced to flood the Gaza Strip.

The attack on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital sparked immediate international condemnation, as news outlets and social media became filled with images of burning rooms and heavy stretchers.

Though the United States has said an analysis of “overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information” showed that Israel was not behind the attack, it had also said that the US would continue to collect evidence. With the investigation in progress and no final decision reached wasn’t it a trifle too hasty for Biden to have rushed to judgment and assumed divine omniscience to pinpoint the blame to one side alone?

With world opinion vehemently against the hospital attack, the game of passing the blame onto the other side began in earnest.  In an attempt to lay at rest the mystery of the ‘who dun it’, Israeli military spokesmen went on the air to deny Palestinian authority claims that 471 people had died in the blast that was caused by an Israeli air raid. They insisted instead that the explosion was the result of a rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group misfiring.

US President Joe Biden arrived in Tel Aviv the following morning.  He was met on the tarmac by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu who hailed him, saying, ‘Welcome Mr. President. God bless you for protecting the nation of Israel.’ God’s chosen seed had suddenly become inhabitants of the world superpower’s chosen state.

His presence on Israeli soil would have greatly assured President Netanyahu. When he embraced Netanyahu declaring, ‘we stand by you,’ it would have seemed the war was already won with the Hamas scalp in the bag. If Biden had gone six yards to assure American support to Israel, he went the whole nine yards when he backed Israeli claims that Hamas or an Islamic faction had bombed their own hospital by mistake.

Speaking at a news conference alongside Netanyahu, Biden said: “I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot, we’ve got to overcome a lot of things.”

Overcome a lot of things? What could he possibly have meant? Put the spin and deflect allegations that it was an Israeli rocket that did it, to the other side instead. Was the off-the-cuff remark for starters to take the heat and hate off America’s chosen seed?

Though the United States has said an analysis of “overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information” showed that Israel was not behind the attack, it had also said that the US would continue to collect evidence. With the investigation in progress and no final decision reached wasn’t it a trifle too hasty for Biden to have rushed to judgment and assumed divine omniscience to pinpoint the blame to one side alone?

Biden, who told Netanyahu not to be consumed by rage, had little criticism to make against Israeli air raids on Gaza or of the Israeli siege laid on the strip which has denied 2.5 million residents access to water, food, electricity and fuel.

Has Biden given to the Israeli government to do as it will, even if the land has to be drenched with more blood of the Palestinian civilians? To gain complete dominance over a strip Israel had occupied since 1967 after the short six day triumphant war against Egypt?

Al Jazeera digital investigation video

On Thursday, there were more surprises to come. The US exercised its veto right at the UN’s Security Council of 15 members to torpedo a resolution placed before it by Brazil which condemned Hamas action and called for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council after the vote: ‘We are on the ground doing the hard work of diplomacy. We believe we need to let that diplomacy play out.’

Was the US to exercise her omnipotence and force Hamas and Israel to lay down their missiles and calmly return to the status quo that existed before October 7? Let more blood drench the arid land and let the violence play out should US diplomacy fail. Had peace dove Biden turned war hawk to meet Israel’s demands to finish Hamas off? Which would not be a bad thing at all except for the civilian casualties it would entail.

The US also said the resolution did not do enough to underscore Israel’s right to self-defence. Does it mean that Israeli revenge is still unquenched as the Talion principle demands? Does it mean that Israeli’s right to self defence can even exceed the Geneva Convention containing the rules of war? Has the unstinted support extended to Israel to finish off the job in Gaza whilst condemning Russia for invading Ukraine, exposed US double standards as claimed by Russia on Thursday? And, as to who bombed the Gaza hospital, will we ever know?

Sadly, as it has been said, ‘the first casualty in war, is truth’.