[News] Ghassan Abu Sitta on why Israel attacks Gaza hospitals

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/ghassan-abu-sitta-why-israel-attacks-gaza-hospitals>
Ghassan Abu Sitta on why Israel attacks Gaza hospitals

Tamara Nassar <https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar> Rights
and Accountability
<https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability> 20 January
2024
------------------------------

Soon after Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta arrived at the al-Awda hospital in the
northern Gaza Strip in October, an Israeli officer contacted the director
and threatened to target the facility if it wasn’t evacuated within two
hours.

This was “the first message from the Israelis that the primary target of
this war would be the health sector.”

Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British-Palestinian surgeon, arrived in Gaza on 9
October and volunteered there for more than a month.

During a speech <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oju0WzrqU8> delivered in
Arabic in Beirut in December, Abu Sitta analyzed how Israel’s attacks on
the medical sector were a critical strategy of its campaign of ethnic
cleansing and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Gaza health administrators recognized Israel’s systemic campaign against
medical facilities and workers as soon as it began.

“There were phone calls not just with the health ministry, but also between
hospitals and hospital managers,” Abu Sitta told the Beirut audience.

“A decision was made that the purpose of evacuating hospitals was to
facilitate the process of ethnic cleansing that the enemy aimed for.”
Test balloon

Abu Sitta, who was at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City when it was bombed
on 17 October
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/hospital-massacre-compounds-gazas-nightmare>,
says that the shocking incident set a precedent of international
complacency that allowed Israel to systematically attack health facilities
throughout Gaza.

Independent analyses conducted remotely haven’t conclusively determined who
was responsible for the explosion at the hospital. But Abu Sitta contends
that it was a trial run by Israel, which received the signal from the West
to carry on with this plan after the bombing at the Christian hospital with
strong international ties.

Several pediatric hospitals and specialized treatment centers were targeted.

In one particularly harrowing case, the Israeli military left
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israeli-military-left-palestinian-infants-die>
several Palestinian babies to die in their small beds at al-Nasr Pediatric
Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip after it was raided by troops.

Four tiny infants died starving, cold and alone, their decomposed bodies found
weeks later
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/03/gaza-premature-babies-dead-nasr/>
.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s medical facilities reached its apex with the
raid on al-Shifa – the largest and most advanced hospital in the territory
– after laying siege to it for days.

Ahead of its assault on al-Shifa, Israel spread propaganda
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-threatens-gazas-largest-hospital>
amplified
by US officials
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-fails-show-evidence-hamas-command-center-al-shifa-hospital>
purporting that Hamas was using the facility as a command and control
center.

As Israel’s lies about Gaza’s health sector crumbled
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/need-comic-relief-watch-israels-pr-stunt-collapse>
one <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r0KG6okOq0> after another
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/21/al-shifa-hospital-gaza-hamas-israel/>,
so too did any pretense that the systematic destruction of Gaza’s health
sector would generate international condemnation or intervention.

Israel now hardly bothers to justify its ongoing attacks on health
facilities. More than half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have completely shut down
and none remain fully operational
<https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-97>
.

Abu Sitta said that Israel has systematically attacked medical
professionals “with the aim of eliminating an entire generation of doctors.”

The Israeli objective, according to Abu Sitta, is that “even if you rebuilt
hospitals, you wouldn’t be able to build the health sector.”

He said that the Israeli army even destroyed
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/6/israeli-forces-target-solar-panels-at-gazas-al-shifa-hospital>
solar panels placed on hospitals so they wouldn’t have to rely entirely on
fuel, the supply of which is controlled by Israel.

Israel’s ultimate aim is to make Gaza unlivable to force the expulsion of
its population, Abu Sitta said.
Collective solidarity

Palestinians met Israel’s attacks with community and solidarity, Abu Sitta
said.

In the face of Israel’s crimes abetted by the international community, Abu
Sitta said, “there were and still are acts of amazing heroism.”

Individuality dissolved and there was an emergence of collectivity that Abu
Sitta said “defends its humanity and civilization in the face of criminal
barbarism.”

He added that “Palestinian society decided to elevate its humanity,” by
“defending the weakest” among them.

People shared their resources and others stepped in and volunteered to keep
a sense of community and dignity.

At al-Ahli hospital, Abu Sitta recalled, “there was a barber nearby. When
we were cut off from the rest of the outside world, the barber volunteered
to come and cut the hair of the doctors and nurses.”

The next day, he volunteered to feed patients and cut their hair.”

Abu Sitta said that a pharmacist came to the hospital after his business
was destroyed to help with managing medications in the operating room.

Abu Sitta described these acts of solidarity as “community resistance.”
Calculated and systematic

After 43 days in Gaza, Abu Sitta left after the hospital he was working at ran
out of anesthesia
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/15/gaza-ghassan-abu-sitta-recollections/#>
.

Years before the current crisis, Gaza’s health system teetered on the brink
of collapse during 16 years of siege, repeated Israeli military offensives
and the maiming of thousands of Great March of Return protesters.

As the genocide drags on, four percent
<https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/4th-month-israeli-genocide-4-percent-gazas-population-dead-missing-or-injured-70-percent-strips-infrastructure-destroyed-enar#:~:text=Geneva%20%2D%20As%20Israel%27s%20genocidal%20war,in%20a%20statement%20issued%20Friday.>
Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been killed, injured or is missing.

Three hospitals in central and southern Gaza – Al-Aqsa, Nasser Medical
Complex and Gaza European – “are at risk of closure due to the issuance of
evacuation orders in adjacent areas and the ongoing conduct of hostilities
nearby,” according to the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs.

Some hospitals in Gaza City and the north that were forced to shut down
after Israeli attacks have “resumed functioning to some degree,” OCHA said
<https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-97>
on Friday.

But those hospitals have a “shortage of medical staff, including
specialized surgeons, neurosurgeons and intensive care staff, as well as a
lack of medical supplies,” OCHA added. With Israel preventing supplies from
reaching the north, there is “an urgent need for fuel, food, and drinking
water.”

The hospitals partially functioning in the south “are operating at three
times their capacity, while facing critical shortages of basic supplies and
fuel,” according to OCHA.

Israeli forces hit Khan Younis, the largest city in the south of Gaza, on
Thursday, “pounding areas near the enclave’s biggest functioning hospital,”
Reuters reported
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/jordan-says-southern-gaza-hospital-badly-damaged-by-israeli-shelling-nearby-2024-01-17/>
.

It is feared that it will be the next medical facility forced to evacuate
by Israel as part of its systematic strategy to destroy and depopulate Gaza.
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