IDF: Palestinian Casualties at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Shati Camp From Terrorists’ Rockets Falling Short
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Fajr Gaza Rockets hamas IDF Israeli army Shifa Hospital de facto Hamas headquarters
Nick Casey, The Wall Street Journal's Middle East Correspondent, posted a photo to Twitter of a Hamas spokesman being interviewed on camera at Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital, which Hamas uses as a base. The photo has since been removed. Photo: Nick Casey / Twitter.
The Israeli army said it was not operating in the vicinity of Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza on Monday, where an explosion reportedly killed and wounded dozens of Palestinians.
“A short while ago Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Shati Refugee Camp were struck by failed rocket attacks launched by Gaza terrorists,” the army said in a statement sent to reporters.
The failed attempt to fire the projectile apparently hit a car near the center, according to Israel’s Channel 2 News, causing the casualties.
The station said that a “Hamas Fajr-5 rocket aimed at central Israel, which was fired from a playground outside the Shifa hospital and exploded on the site causing casualties, had at least a 100 kg (220 lbs) warhead,” according to The Times of Israel.
Reporter Nir Devori of Channel 2 and analyst Ehud Yaari confirmed the carnage was most likely the result of a failed Fajr rocket launch — aimed at central Israel.
Palestinian reports are claiming at least seven dead and dozens wounded in a “failed rocket launch” by terrorists from the vicinity of the medical compound, according to Israeli Channel 1 reporter Yoram Cohen.”
Palestinian sources at the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, said an airstrike killed children, a claim the army denied.
In an earlier event, the Israeli army Sunday evening denied that it was responsible for the deaths of some 15 Palestinians in a United Nations Refugee Works Agency (UNRWA) school in the northern Gaza Strip on July 24.
An “inquiry concluded that during the intense fighting between IDF forces and Hamas militants, the militants operated adjacent to the UNRWA school. The militants fired anti-tank missiles at IDF soldiers, who then responded by firing several mortars in their direction,” the army statement said.
“The inquiry… concluded that a single errant mortar landed in the courtyard of the UNRWA school, when it was completely empty.”
“The IDF stresses it does not operate or target international organizations in the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing coordination conducted via the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) is continuous without change, even during times of combat.”
“In light of the inquiry’s findings, the IDF rejects the claims that were made by various officials immediately following the incident, that people were killed in the school premises as a result of IDF operational activity,” the statement concluded.
IDF map showing 100 Hamas rockets striking within Gaza. Photo: IDF / Twitter.
The IDF has documented a significant percentage of Gaza rockets that fall short and strike within Gaza.
“Have you heard? #Hamas are launching rockets at…..#Gaza over 100 times in 9 days,” IDF Spokesman, Lt.-Col. Peter Lerner, tweeted last week.
During the three weeks of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, Hamas has been caught using hospitals, mosques and schools to hide militants and weapons, all of which are contrary to international rules of war created to protect civilians.
Additionally, some reporters trying to cover events in the coastal enclave say Hamas is limiting coverage and threatening them for reporting anything unflattering to the Islamist terrorist group.
Radjaa Abu Dagga, Gaza correspondent for France’s Libération, told the newspaper‘s readers on Tuesday how Hamas refused his requests to leave Gaza and how he was interrogated by Hamas members from their headquarters inside Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital.
Blogger Elder of Ziyon published a translation of his harrowing account on Thursday.
Posting a photo to Twitter of a Hamas spokesman being interviewed on camera, Nick Casey, The Wall Street Journal‘s Middle East Correspondent, wondered how patients there might feel about Hamas using the hospital as a “de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices,” as reported by The Washington Post last week.
On Monday, Casey wrote: “You have to wonder [with] the shelling how patients at Shifa hospital feel as Hamas uses it as a safe place to see media.”
4:31 pm
Why would Kerry would draft an initiative which would address Hamas’ demands for lifting the siege of Gaza without dismantling Hamas’ missile armory and tunnel network? I am also concerned that such an initiative for a ceasefire proposal was discussed with Turkey, whose leadership has leaned toward Hamas, and has accused the Jewish State of attempting genocide, and Qatar,which has extended enormous sums wjth which to finance the construction of tunnels and rockets. Well, Israel has already accepted the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. What can Kerry add to that after his consultation with Turkey and Qatar?
8:30 am
100 rockets from Gaza have fallen in Gaza. Sounds like the hand of G-d to me.
8:32 am
G-d said that Ishmael was going to be a wild ass and that is exactly what all his descendants are….WILD ASSES.
8:56 am
It’s up to 200 now, according to IDF… The Big Hand, or just incompetence.
4:02 pm
And the difference is? If one is consumed by the addiction to “The Jews Ate My Homework” the delusions attendant on that gum up all your other thinking as well. You come to believe that “God is on your side” instead of God being the Transcendent Oneness of all creation. You forget that you’re supposed to be on God’s side; not the other way around. You get careless, sloppy and bad bad things happen.
A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this. When the wicked spring up as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they may be destroyed for ever.
1:04 am
If Hamas spent as much money on shelters for the Gazan population as they do on producing lies and false propaganda a great many dead Muslims might be alive today.
But that is not what Hamas wants. It considers dead Gazans to be a valuable asset.
Mickey Oberman
4:38 pm
Just because a bunch of criminals decide there is more action in claiming legitimacy buy choosing a name, doesn’t mean they’re anything but what they are…CRIMINALS.
That’s why they like it when children die, no matter by who’s hand.
Hospitals as head-quarters! Fine! they say.
U.N. compounds for ammo dumps? Sounds good to them. Pregnant teenage girls as human shields so the enemy hopefully won’t fire back?
Hamas could not be happier.
Criminal World Court in the Hague might be a reasonable venue.
11:46 pm
Hamas and all their associates are habitual liars and thieves that nothing they say or do can be believed.
Their so called leaders rob their own people to constantly replenish their nest eggs
10:17 pm
Hamas reporters in the tradition of Third Reich’s minister of propaganda Joseph Paul Goebbels are masters of the big lie. Unfortunately a gullible press and media antagonistic to Israel continue to propagate the lies. Incidentally the present Obama administration and secretary of state John Kerry are complicit in furthering anti-Israel propaganda.
10:15 pm
I think hamas is now intentionally targeting its own schools in a desperate attempt for a really bad civilian kill of its own.
9:58 pm
Never in the history of warfare has there been an army like the IDF that is risking its own people to minimize civilian casualties.
Those who criticize Israel; Were you in a deep coma when the US killed thousands of civilians unintentionally in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan? Were you sleeping when NATO aerial attacks killed hundreds of civilians unintentionally in Croatia and Libya? Were you watching soccer world cup when Boko Haram kidnapped over 200 girls in Nigeria? Are you traveling with no access to news for the last three years while more than 200.000 people – women and children, chemical warfare, are being killed in Syria? Where are you now that ISIS is slaughtering innocent civilians in Iraq by the thousands, women and children, just for the sake of Allah? But I see that suddenly you woke up to blast Israel with all your heart and fairness. I am sure you know the name for this is hypocrite! If you did not care for all of the above you are not a supporter of human rights, you are just plain ANTI ISRAEL and an ANTISEMITE. I see many Muslims arguing that Islam is a peaceful religion and that only radicals make a bad name for Islam. But actually all I see is fellow Muslims including political and religious leaders supporting radicals. Are you a Muslim against radicals? Why I cant hear or see you on the streets, on the radio and TV, even here, giving your name and showing your face, saying loud and clear that you condemn radicals? Well, I tell you, if you are silent, you are a sponsor or at least an accomplice, no more no less.
9:53 pm
“mohammed mehammed”: Israel did not fire at the hospital; do you get it? so what difference does it make if some agency of the u.n., active collaborators with the terrorists, gave the IDF gps coordinates? moreover, even assuming that the coordinates were furnished, one cannot direct hostile fire from a hospital (or any other site) or use it for military purposes, e.g. command, and hold it exempt from responsive military action. in short, one is not permitted to use human shields to immunize oneself from attack. get it? this is a fundamental point of international law that is lost on morons who support the genocidal terrorists that run gaza. (BTW: while they built attack tunnels, investment properties and shelters for themselves, what did they build for their people, you know, the people that elected them and support all the barbarous attacks on Israeli civilians? did the terrorists build any shelters [except for themselves])? c’mon, mm, that’s an easy one: the answer is “no.”
7:33 pm
Israel is acting disgracefully – they chose to attack Hamas, they chose to escalate with a ground invasion. They have been accused of war crimes, insulted John Kerry and ignored a reasonable & balanced proposal, ignored the UN and Obama requesting a ceasefire. The US should stop paying its tax dollars to Israel & start to divest in Israeli goods and services until the lunatics & fanatics in Tel Aviv – get the message, the world is sick of their hatred for the Palestinians of Gaza who want freedom & normal relations.
5:11 pm
The UN gave coordinates of the school so it will be avoided.
I doubt now Hamas is using their bigger rockets. Not to mention Israel has said it was their missile.
9:54 pm
Mohanmed,
Israel said “their missile hit in an empty courtyard”. They showed the aerial camera shot which clearly showed that. I know who I believe.
10:15 pm
it was a fajr iranian, israel never said that
4:57 pm
The CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a publicly funded organization, is still reporting that the hospital was hit by Israeli fire.
Moreover, it seems to never report information that suggests that Hamas is using so-called safe zones for military purposes. The only exception I know of, consisted of brief, fuzzy reports of Hamas rockets in schools.
Never mentioned, even in the rocket reports, is the fact that using safe areas for military purposes is a violation of the 5th Geneva Convention. This would make Hamas leaders, the people who stored the weapons, the local school staff, hospital staff, members of the Red Cross/Crescent, the UNRWA officals, and the Secretary-General of the UN war criminals.
10:35 pm
CBC is incorrigible. Very biased. Think a miniature BBC.
2:37 pm
war crimes.
this is despicable.