Archiv: Zeugen / witnesses


31.08.2024 - 22:50 [ +972 Magazine ]

‘If you try to defend yourself, you’re dead’: A West Bank village’s night of terror

Now, Palestinians in the area are increasingly fearful about what’s to come. “The settlers have always used the road belonging to the village [to get to their outpost], but now they are being more aggressive, provoking the residents,” Zawahra said. “In a few days when the academic year begins, the children will have to use this road to get to school. How can we make sure they are not attacked?”

Zawahra also explained how the latest attack has forced village residents to reevaluate what they held to be true: that there is safety in numbers. “We thought that the more people there are [when settlers enter a village], the lower the chance that they will attack. But they shot randomly. If you try to defend yourself, you’re dead.”

04.05.2024 - 09:15 [ Allie Wong / USA Today ]

I‘m a student who was arrested at a Columbia protest. I am not a hero, nor am I a villain.

Students in dorms craned their necks and shakily stretched their iPhones out windows to observe the impending attack.

We clung tighter to one another as they approached us, and seized us like rag dolls and slammed us into the hallowed ground of brick and concrete. But unlike rag dolls, we bleed, we crack, we bruise, we feel.

03.05.2024 - 05:00 [ Democracy Now ]

“People Could Have Died”: Police Raid UCLA Gaza Protest, Waited as Pro-Israel Mob Attacked Encampment

We get an update from the University of California, Los Angeles, where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment. The Real News Network reporter Mel Buer was on the scene during the attack. She describes seeing counterprotesters provoke students, yelling slurs and bludgeoning them with parts of the encampment’s barricade, and says the attack lasted several hours without police or security intervention. ”UCLA is complicit in violence inflicted upon protesters,” wrote the editorial board of UCLA’s campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, the next day. Four of the paper’s student journalists were targeted and assaulted by counterprotesters while covering the protests.

01.05.2024 - 08:20 [ Columbia Encampment / Telegram ]

NOTICE: As the night progresses, we have received word from someone arrested inside of Hamilton that NYPD stormed the building and proceeded to tackle and body slam protesters, and attacked them with batons, shields, and sound grenades. We ask all Columbia affiliates in proximity to NYPD to continue recording whatever they can.

16.04.2024 - 19:55 [ Middle East Eye ]

Ghassan Abu Sittah accuses Germany of ‚genocide complicity‘ after being refused entry

(13.04.2024)

„This morning, at 10 o‘clock, I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine, where I had been asked, along with many others … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals,“ he said.

Abu Sittah said he was escorted from the passport office to the basement of the airport, where he was questioned for three-and-a-half hours.

„At the end of three-and-a-half hours, I was told that I woud not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April,“ he said.

16.04.2024 - 19:44 [ Krone.at ]

Berlin: „Palästina-Kongress“ von Polizei aufgelöst

812.04.2024)

Die Organisatoren hatten den Tagungsort erst am Vormittag bei einer Pressekonferenz im Stadtteil Wedding und auf der Webseite des Kongresses bekannt gegeben. In der Ankündigung für den Kongress und in der Pressekonferenz warfen sie Israel unter anderem „Apartheid“, „Kolonialismus“ und „Völkermord“ (Genozid) im Gazastreifen vor. Deutschland trage eine „Mitschuld“, weil es Waffen an Israel liefere.

16.04.2024 - 19:36 [ Nachdenkseiten ]

Beweise begraben, Zeugen zum Schweigen bringen

Es ist Freitag gegen Abend, der 12. April 2024. In der Hand hält der Arzt ein Mikrophon von Middle East Eye (MEE), einem in England ansässigen Internetportal, das in englischer und französischer Sprache Nachrichten über den Nahen und Mittleren Osten veröffentlicht. Ruhig und überlegt berichtet der Arzt, was ihm am Berliner Flughafen widerfahren ist, eindringlich blicken seine Augen durch die großen, dunkel gerahmten Brillengläser.

11.04.2024 - 15:53 [ Al Jazeera ]

UNICEF says its vehicle hit by live fire while waiting to enter northern Gaza

(two hours ago)

Tess Ingram, a UNICEF spokesperson, was in a convoy hit by Israeli gunfire as it tried to deliver aid to northern Gaza.
She said the vehicles were at a “holding point” – a designated area where cars have to wait until a checkpoint is ready to receive them.
“We were waiting there when gunfire broke out in the vicinity. The gunfire came from the direction of the checkpoint towards civilians who then ran away from the checkpoint and the gunfire hit us,” Ingram told Al Jazeera.
“We were really lucky,” she said, adding three rounds hit the car where she was sitting.

06.04.2024 - 19:10 [ Human Rights Watch ]

Gaza: Israeli Strike Killing 106 Civilians an Apparent War Crime

– Israeli forces unlawfully attacked a residential building in Gaza on October 31, 2023, absent any apparent military target, killing at least 106 civilians, including 54 children.
– Scores of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since October 7 have caused thousands of civilian casualties, underscoring the greater risk of unlawful attacks from explosive weapons in populated areas.
Governments should suspend arms transfers to Israel, support the International Criminal Court investigation in Palestine, and impose targeted sanctions on officials responsible for laws-of-war violations.

06.04.2024 - 18:55 [ Al Jazeera ]

Israel strike that killed 106 people in Gaza ‘apparent war crime’: Probe

(04.04.2024)

The inquiry was based on testimonies from 16 people the group spoke to between January and March, satellite images, dozens of photographs and videos from the site, as well as those shared on social media, the international rights group said on Thursday as it released the findings of its investigation.

It called on governments to suspend weapons transfers to Israel and support the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) investigation in Palestine, saying the attack was among the “deadliest single incidents for civilians” since Israel’s war on Gaza started in October.

29.03.2024 - 19:07 [ Nachdenkseiten ]

Von der ethnischen Säuberung zum Völkermord. Die Bundesregierung macht mit.

Der israelische Historiker Ilan Pappe hat den Umgang Israels mit Palästina als ethnische Säuberung bezeichnet. Die Zustände sind nicht besser geworden. Sie sind schlimmer. Dazu und zur Rolle Deutschlands kam ein Leserbrief aus Kanada mit einer treffenden Collage. Siehe unten Abschnitt A. Außerdem in Abschnitt B. eine einschlägige Äußerung des UNICEF-Sprechers James Elder in Gaza.

24.03.2024 - 19:18 [ PRCS (Palestine Red Crescent) / Twitter ]

Urgent: Israeli Occupation vehicles are besieging both Al-Amal Hospital and Al-Naser Hospital amidst very intense shelling and heavy gunfire. Occupation vehicles are currently surrounding Al-Amal Hospital and conducting extensive excavation work around the hospital. All of our teams are in extreme danger at the moment and are completely immobilized. Additionally, they are unable to bury the body of our colleague Amir Abu Aisha within the hospital’s backyard.

24.03.2024 - 19:15 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israeli forces demand Palestinians leave Khan Younis hospital ‘naked’ says medical charity

The charity said that Israeli forces had made these demands on Saturday via a drone speaker as it launched smoke bombs to encourage staff to leave the facility.

It added that one of the injured Palestinians left in al-Amal hospital was also shot dead by Israeli forces.

24.03.2024 - 18:57 [ Associated Press ]

Palestinians describe bodies and ambulances crushed in Israel’s ongoing raid around Gaza hospital

Israeli jets on Sunday launched several strikes near the Shifa Hospital, which largely stopped functioning following the November raid. After claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center there, Israeli forces months ago exposed a single tunnel leading to a few underground rooms.

Hardly any aid has been delivered in recent weeks to northern Gaza and Gaza City, where Shifa is located.

21.03.2024 - 00:39 [ Hamza Salha / Middle East Eye ]

War on Gaza: I was buried alive beneath the rubble and awoke in a ‚graveyard‘

When we arrived at Yahya‘s house, I called out to him. He poked his head out a window, letting me know he would be down shortly. As we waited, we jumped to take cover behind Yahya‘s house to avoid the shelling nearby.

In a split second, the wall behind me crumbled, and dust billowed in the air. Before I could even react, I was buried under the rubble.

There was only darkness. Everything happened so quickly that I couldn‘t understand what had just happened.

I could feel the debris crushing my back. Each attempt to move felt like trying to lift a mountain, and every passing moment felt like an eternity.

Suffocating on dust and smoke, I realised the bombing scenes I had seen on TV were now my reality….

18.03.2024 - 16:02 [ Al Jazeera / Youtube ]

Israeli forces launch new attack on Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital | Al Jazeera Newsfeed

The Israeli army has launched a new attack on al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, raiding and opening fire on the facility where thousands are taking shelter.

18.03.2024 - 15:55 [ Middle East Eye ]

Israeli forces shooting anyone moving inside al-Shifa hospital, eyewitness says

Mohammed Eliwa, a journalist reporting from al-Shifa hospital, told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli forces are shooting anyone moving in the courtyards.

Hamadah Abdel Hadi, an activist also inside the hospital, said Israeli forces broke into the hospital and immediately targeted Al Jazeera staff.

02.03.2024 - 20:47 [ Middle East Eye ]

New testimonies from Gaza City aid-seekers killing emerge

„At around 3:40am, a tank and a drone approached people and started shooting at random,“ he said. „The shooting and shelling were insane, a level I had never witnessed since the beginning of the war.“

Hassan said the tank came back 15 minutes later with aid trucks, which people rushed towards. He was able to get one flour bag before Israeli forces started shooting again.

„Tens of young men fell in front of me in seconds,“ he said.

26.02.2024 - 23:25 [ Middle East Eye ]

Starvation in Gaza: ‚If we stay like this for another week, we will die en masse‘

The famine in northern Gaza, caused by Israel‘s strangling siege, has reached extreme levels, Palestinian residents there have told Middle East Eye. There have been several reports of people dying from malnutrition, including infants.

Life for over half a million people there now revolves around a single task every day: finding something to eat. In this following account, a resident of Gaza City, who did not wish to be named, recounts to MEE‘s Lubna Masarwa the struggle to survive in a war-torn city.

25.02.2024 - 03:45 [ Middle East Eye ]

War on Gaza: ‚My unborn baby was dead before I even knew the gender‘

The walk seemed endless. It felt like we were not in Gaza any more. Nothing looked recognisable. We were walking in a wasteland with snipers, tanks, and soldiers all around amid the mass destruction.

Since I have a prosthetic knee and I was pregnant, I could not catch up with the rest. I had to stop every hour to rest, which made the journey altogether even harder for me and my children.

When we reached the Israel-erected checkpoint along the route, it beeped as I passed it.

I knew it was because of my prosthetic knee and that’s what I told the soldiers, but they did not care. …

25.02.2024 - 02:00 [ Middle East Eye ]

Sexual abuse and beatings: A Palestinian mother‘s ordeal in Israeli custody

The group of women spent 11 days in this facility, during which Hussain was taken for interrogation twice, an experience no less traumatising.

„They asked me many questions about my family, my husband and my siblings,“ Hussain recalled.

„The soldiers kept threatening to hurt my children, shouting at me that if I don‘t tell the truth, they will torture and kill my kids.

„They kept asking about my brothers and sisters. One of my brothers is a lawyer and two others are professors and one is a doctor and one barber. They are working people, they have no connection to anything else. They kept insisting that they were ‚activists‘, and when I asked what they meant, they said I knew the answer.

„During the interrogations, they tied me to a chair and a female soldier stood next to me, kicking me and shoving me with her weapon to answer properly.

„They also asked about my social media accounts and I told them I only had Facebook. They threatened they would keep watching me on it.“

After suffering in this undisclosed detention facility for 11 days, Hussain was then moved again, this time to a prison…….

25.02.2024 - 01:46 [ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ]

Israel/oPt: UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls

(19.02.2024)

Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received. “We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces,” the experts said.

The experts expressed serious concern about the arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers, in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October. Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.

“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.

22.02.2024 - 21:08 [ United Nations ]

‚Shocking, unsustainable and desperate‘ conditions across Gaza, Security Council hears

Also briefing the Council was Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders.

Fearful of further deadly Israeli attacks, he said he was “appalled” by the United States’ repeated use of its veto power to obstruct efforts to adopt the most evident of resolutions: one demanding an immediate ceasefire.

“We live in fear of a ground invasion” in Rafah, he said.

Calling Washington’s new proposed draft resolution “misleading at best”, he said the Council should reject any resolution “that further hampers humanitarian efforts on the ground and leads this Council to tacitly endorse the continued violence and mass atrocities in Gaza”.

20.02.2024 - 21:15 [ Middle East Eye ]

Beatings, theft and murder: The day Israeli soldiers came to Gaza‘s Yarmouk Stadium

After weeks of dodging Israeli bombs in the Shuja‘iyya neighbourhood of northern Gaza, Youssef Hamdan al-Mubayyed took refuge with his family in Yarmouk stadium in Gaza City with hundreds of other Palestinians.

Mubayyed thought it would be the safest place for him to be in Gaza, as the stadium was exclusively used by those displaced by Israel’s military offensive since 7 October.

Instead it became somewhere he would be tortured, humiliated and threatened with death alongside dozens of other Palestinians.

Middle East Eye has spoken to Mubayyed and others who gave similar accounts, a sports stadium turned into a makeshift “interrogation and torture camp”.

A place that became the scene of numerous atrocities, including murder….

17.02.2024 - 22:27 [ Trita Parsi / Twitter ]

According to a US doctor in Gaza, Israeli snipers are executing Palestinian children with single shots to their heads. Biden‘s response is to ACTIVELY PREVENT other countries from seeking to stop Israel‘s massacre.

17.02.2024 - 22:17 [ Irfan Galaria / LA Times ]

Opinion: I’m an American doctor who went to Gaza. What I saw wasn’t war — it was annihilation

I stopped keeping track of how many new orphans I had operated on. After surgery they would be filed somewhere in the hospital, I’m unsure of who will take care of them or how they will survive. On one occasion, a handful of children, all about ages 5 to 8, were carried to the emergency room by their parents. All had single sniper shots to the head.

14.02.2024 - 22:56 [ CommonDreams.org ]

IDF Let Israeli Civilians Film Torture of Palestinian Detainees: Report

Israel Defense Forces officers brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured, according to survivor testimonies published this week by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

Prisoners held at detention centers in Zikim on the northern border of the Gaza Strip and at a site in southern Israel affiliated with Naqab Prison „told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israeli towns,“ the group said.

13.02.2024 - 18:21 [ Euro-Med Human Rights Monitot ]

“They brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture”: IDF torture of Palestinian prisoners is turned into entertainment for Israeli viewers

Palestinian Omar Abu Mudallala, 43, told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “I was arrested at the checkpoint set up near the Kuwait roundabout, which separates Gaza City from the central region, as part of the Israeli random arrest campaigns. I was subjected to all types of torture and abuse for approximately 52 days,” pointing out that Israeli soldiers “brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture.”

Abu Mudallala added: “The Israeli army brought a number of Israeli civilians into our detention centres while beating us and telling them, ‘These are Hamas terrorists who killed you and raped your women on 7 October,’ while the Israeli civilians were filming us being beaten, abused, and tortured while making fun of us.”

„This happened five times while I was being held. The first time was in Barkasat Zikim, where we were blindfolded. However, one of the detainees who speaks Hebrew told us that the soldiers were interacting with Israeli civilians claiming that we were armed fighters. The other four incidents took place in the Negev detention facility, where successive Israeli groups were taken inside tents to witness our abuse and record the torture methods we were subjected to without allowing us to speak or interact with them. Since we were not wearing blindfolds at the time, I saw them all four times with my own eyes.“

27.01.2024 - 20:54 [ ABC News / Twitter ]

Witnesses said three Palestinians were killed in an airstrike in southern Gaza, less than a day after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide.

26.01.2024 - 12:55 [ UNRWA, @UN Agency for Palestine Refugees. ]

„These are not conditions meant for human beings“ @JulietteTouma Situation in?#Gaza absolutely desperate. Wherever you look, there are people displaced, exhausted after 3.5 months of brutal war. People will die as a result of the siege: hunger, disease, lack of health care.

22.01.2024 - 09:36 [ Thomas Moser / Buchkomplizen.de ]

Der Amri-Komplex: Ein Terroranschlag, zwölf Tote und die Verstrickungen des Staates

Am 19. Dezember 2016 kam es auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt am Berliner Breitscheidplatz zu einer LKW-Attacke, die insgesamt zwölf Menschen das Leben kostete. Für diesen schwersten Terroranschlag in Deutschland seit der Bombe auf das Münchner Oktoberfest von 1980 gilt laut offizieller Version der Tunesier Anis Amri noch immer als alleiniger Täter. Doch nach über vierjähriger Aufklärung in mehreren parlamentarischen Untersuchungsausschüssen gibt es daran begründete Zweifel. Wenn nicht Amri, wer saß dann am Steuer des LKW? Wer waren die Mittäter und Helfer? Und warum haben die deutschen Sicherheitsbehörden kein Interesse, die wahren Hintergründe aufzuklären? Thomas Moser macht deutlich: Die ungeklärten Fragen aus dem NSU-Skandal wiederholen sich auf erschreckende Weise nun im Amri-Komplex.

14.01.2024 - 22:49 [ Mohammed al-Hajjar / Middle East Eye ]

In Gaza, you don’t only see death. You smell it. You breathe it

I first went to check on the mother, who was still buried under the rubble. I called her name and crawled beneath the concrete walls, but there was only silence.

We dug further only to find that she had passed away with her arms wrapped around the tiny bodies of her children.

Some days after returning to our neighbourhood, we noticed that a pack of stray dogs had come and taken shelter in one of the bombed-out houses next to us. Throughout the night, we heard them barking and howling loudly, as though they were fighting over something….

05.01.2024 - 19:31 [ Middle East Eye ]

‚I recovered a dead boy‘s leg from a dog‘

„A group of dogs are roaming in our neighbourhood and we have to find a solution to push them away,“ the reporter said.

„Every day we see them looking through the rubble and extracting body parts.

„Yesterday I saw two of them fight over the dead boy‘s leg. I had to step in and take it away from them before burying it. It‘s heartbreaking.“

05.01.2024 - 18:52 [ Middle East Eye ]

War on Gaza: Survivors recount harrowing Israeli field executions

For three days, Moemen Raed al-Khaldi lay wounded and motionless between the corpses of his killed family members, pretending to be dead to protect himself from being shot by Israeli soldiers.

On 21 December, Israeli soldiers broke into the house where the Khaldi family had taken refuge in northern Gaza and, in mere minutes, they shot everyone present.

The soldiers left the house thinking they had killed them all, only Moemen remained alive, bleeding for days before the neighbours found him and took him to hospital.

05.01.2024 - 17:36 [ MSF International / Twitter ]

Our project coordinator, Jacob Burns, arrived in southern Gaza on 17 December 2023 & describes the horrific situation for Palestinians on the ground. “Gaza is gone, basically, and there is nothing left.

It’s difficult for Palestinians to see a life here again, which is very sad.”

05.01.2024 - 17:22 [ Middle East Eye ]

Doctors Without Borders: ‘Gaza is gone…there is nothing left’

28.12.2023 - 14:58 [ David Sheen / Twitter ]

Killed by order of Israeli general Barak Hiram

(25.12.2023)

1) Pessi Cohen
2) Hannah Cohen
3) Yitzhak Siton
4) Tal Siton
5) Zeev Hacker
6) Zehava Hacker
7) Hava Ben Ami
8) Adi Dagan
9) Tal Katz
10) Ayala Hatsroni
11) Liel Hatsroni
12) Yanai Hatsroni
13) Suhayb al-Razim

28.12.2023 - 14:54 [ ElectronicIntifada.net ]

Israeli general killed Israelis on 7 October then lied about it

Video and witness accounts recently published by Israeli media reveal new details about how Israeli forces killed their own civilians in Kibbutz Be’eri on 7 October.

Last week, Israel’s Channel 12 released previously unseen footage of an Israeli tank firing at a civilian home in the settlement, just a few miles east of Gaza.

The new evidence shows that the Israeli commander on the scene, Brigadier General Barak Hiram, lied to a top Israeli journalist about what happened in the kibbutz that day, after Palestinian resistance fighters launched a large-scale assault on Israeli military bases and settlements across the boundary from Gaza.

28.12.2023 - 14:46 [ Uncaptured.media ]

Israeli volunteer: Apache helicopter fired into Kibbutz Be’eri

(14.12.2023)

An Israeli Apache helicopter fired into Kibbutz Be’eri, according to testimony from Erez Tidhar, a military veteran who on the scene on October 7 as a rescue and evacuation volunteer for the Eitam unit .

“Every minute a missile comes down on you, every minute,” Tidhar recalled. “And suddenly you see a missile from a helicopter that fires into the kibbutz. You say to yourself, ‘I don’t get it. An IDF helicopter firing into an Israeli kibbutz.’ And then you see a tank driving through the streets of the kibbutz flanking the cannon and it fires a shell into a house. These are things you cannot comprehend.”

22.12.2023 - 22:22 [ Wall Street Journal ]

How Three Babies Were Left Behind at an Evacuated Gaza Hospital

The intensive-care unit at Gaza City’s Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital was on the brink of collapse on Nov. 10, as the staff tried to keep oxygen flowing to three fragile babies, according to staff who were there that day. Then Israel’s military called on everyone in the medical center to leave….

22.12.2023 - 22:12 [ jeremy scahill / Twitter ]

This was a pernicious lie that was promoted by Biden and his administration to justify Israel’s attacking of hospitals. Those of us who warned that this was a lie at the time were accused of being Hamas propagandists.

22.12.2023 - 21:58 [ Washington Post ]

The case of al-Shifa: Investigating the assault on Gaza’s largest hospital

The Post’s analysis shows:

– The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.
– None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network.
– There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.

Hours before IDF troops entered the complex, the Biden administration declassified U.S. intelligence assessments that it said bolstered Israel’s claims. In the aftermath of the raid, Israeli and U.S. officials have stood firm behind their initial statements.

22.12.2023 - 21:52 [ Rolling Stone / Twitter ]

A Washington Post investigation has found no proof of a Hamas command center under al-Shifa Hospital following Israel’s attack on the medical complex

22.12.2023 - 21:44 [ Huffington Post ]

Evidence Doesn‘t Support Israeli Claims That Hospital Was Hamas Command Center: Report

The Israeli raid on al-Shifa Hospital last month, which was preceded by an evacuation order aimed at thousands of people sheltering at the hospital and hundreds of sick patients, produced one of the grisliest scenes in the country’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip: a “death zone” that included a mass grave at the entrance of the hospital and dozens of desperate patients inside, according to the World Health Organization, whose aid workers arrived at the facility on Nov. 18 as part of a humanitarian mission.

Forty patients, including four premature babies, died in the hospital due to a lack of electricity in the days surrounding the raid, hospital administrators told the United Nations.

18.12.2023 - 17:27 [ World Health Organization ]

WHO delivers health supplies to Al-Shifa Hospital, appeals for continued access to address urgent needs in north Gaza

(17.12.2023)

Once the most important and largest referral hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa now houses only a handful of doctors and a few nurses, together with 70 volunteers, working under what WHO staff described as “unbelievably challenging circumstances,” and calling it a “hospital in need of resuscitation.” The operating theatres and other major services remain nonfunctional due to lack of fuel, oxygen, specialized medical staff, and supplies. The hospital is only able to provide basic trauma stabilization, has no blood for transfusion, and hardly any staff to care for the constant flow of patients. Dialysis is being provided to approximately 30 patients a day, with the dialysis machines operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, using a small generator.

The team described the emergency department as a “bloodbath”, with hundreds of injured patients inside, and new patients arriving every minute. Patients with trauma injuries were being sutured on the floor, and limited to no pain management is available at the hospital. WHO staff said that the emergency department is so full that care must be exercised to not step on patients on the floor.

18.12.2023 - 16:59 [ United Nations ]

UN workers delivering aid to Gaza hospital describe ‘bloodbath’ in overflowing emergency department

(16.12.2023)

UN workers delivering medical supplies to the Al-Shifa Hospital in north Gaza on 16 December have described the emergency department as a “bloodbath”, with hundreds of injured people inside, and a constant flow of new patients.

17.12.2023 - 19:15 [ Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem / Twitter ]

(…)

17.12.2023 - 19:10 [ Hammam Farah / Twitter ]

This morning Israeli snipers shot and killed my two family friends in an attack on the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza. Nahida (Um Emad Anton) and Samar, mother and daughter, were walking to the Sisters’ Convent to use the only bathroom.

(14 hours ago)

One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety. Their bodies remain strewn across the church courtyard.

The water tanks and solar panels were also struck. We don’t know if they have enough water to survive.

The Christian community in Gaza is on the verge of extinction.

There are about 800 of us left, some sheltering in the Catholic church, some in the Orthodox church, and a few still in their homes in Gaza City.

There are approximately 530 Christians inside the Holy Family, 60 per cent are women and children.

My family has been sheltered there since St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church was bombed and my cousin was murdered.

This is a targeted death campaign during the Christmas season on the world’s oldest Christian community.

Earlier this morning, an Israeli tank fired on the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Theresa. The convent housed ~54 people with disabilities. The generator was destroyed, taking out electricity. Then two more shells were fired completely destroying the convent. Many of these people are now without the respirators they need to survive.

The Red Cross has submitted a request to the Pope for urgent intervention.

My mother texting with my sister, describing a horrific situation at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza. israeli tanks have surrounded the church, and snipers have taken position around it, shooting at the oldest Christian community in the world.

17.12.2023 - 18:58 [ EuromedMonitor.org ]

Urgent int’l investigation needed to probe Israeli war crimes after Palestinian civilians buried alive at Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital

According to Euro-Med Monitor, Israeli army bulldozers drove into the hospital this morning and totally destroyed its southern section, leaving behind massive destruction following several days of non-stop attacks and siege. Nine days ago, Israeli tanks had besieged the hospital, with Israeli snipers taking over the surrounding buildings and shooting at anyone passing by, the rights group said.

Euro-Med Monitor teams are continuing to document what happened at Kamal Adwan Hospital today, and emphasised the need to open an international investigation into the horrific violations that the facility witnessed over the past several days against patients, displaced people, and medical staff as part of Israeli’s deliberate and systematic targeting of health facilities in the Gaza Strip since 7 October.

17.12.2023 - 18:20 [ @Timesofgaza / Nitter ]

The IOF opens fire during a Ministry of Health press conference in an attempt to silence medical professionals‘ testimonials of the war crimes committed at the vicinity of Kamal Adwan hospital.