'Attacks on Gaza hospitals another example of Israeli barbarism'

November 18, 2023 - 23:50

TEHRAN- The Israeli military’s strikes on hospitals and medical facilities throughout the Gaza Strip have drawn harsh criticism from the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, who described the raid as just another example of the Tel Aviv regime’s barbarism toward Palestinians in the beleaguered enclave.

Nasser Kanaani wrote in a post published on X on Saturday, “After the failure of the Israeli regime authorities to prove their false claims on al-Shifa hospital, its army resumed its attacks on other hospitals in Gaza.”

“Attacks on Jordanian & Indonesian hospitals were yet another manifestation of the regime's aggression and brutality,” he added. 

He emphasized that striking hospitals “violates all human rights standards, international law, and the Geneva Conventions,” and that such an action “makes the criminal nature of this regime (Israel) even more obvious to the world.”

This comes as Israel’s raid on al-Shifa Hospital is continuing, with four premature babies now pronounced dead, and five more described as being in critical condition.

According to hospital officials, there is not a “single drop of water” within the hospital. 

Israeli troops have given everyone at al-Shifa Hospital, including the medical staff, patients, and displaced residents, an hour to leave the medical facility, according to a medical source within the hospital.

General manager for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Munir al-Barsh, also said that Israeli forces had removed 15 bodies from a mass grave, with a total of around 130 bodies taken from the hospital. He did not know where the bodies were taken to.

Medical officials report that oxygen and fuel shortages have killed the majority of critically ill patients at al-Shifa Hospital who were on ventilators.

A scarcity of fuel and power coupled with Israeli shelling has resulted in the closure of twenty-five hospitals.

In what has been described as a new low for Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the regime's forces had raided the enclave's al-Shifa hospital, the biggest medical facility in the besieged territory, killing families sheltering there. 

Israeli troops shot dead dozens of civilians trying to flee the regime's army. 

Amid the brutal raid, Gaza government officials said the occupation forces opened fire on families trying to leave the hospital, which "led to more than 30 Palestinian martyrs". 

Many more had reportedly been injured at the site where (as well as thousands of doctors, nurses, and patients) thousands of civilians took refuge, believing it to be a safe haven from the Israeli bombardment. 

Numerous days after its war on Gaza, an army that once considered itself invincible and was believed as such in the region and beyond is now trying to present an attack on a hospital as a victory to others. 

Yet, Palestinian resistance continued to inflict heavy defeats on Israeli ground forces on Wednesday, blowing up Merkava tanks, killing Israeli troops, and firing missiles at occupied territories. 

According to Palestinian sources, the regime also arrested at least 200 civilians and patients at the hospital complex. 

The director of the al-Shifa hospital complex issued disturbing statements. 

"We contacted all relevant international bodies, but have not received anything other than expressing concern. The emergency department has shut down operations while hundreds of wounded people were admitted there. More than 900 patients and 5,000 displaced people are facing certain death at the hospital" he warned. 

He also said, "It is possible hundreds of people will die in their homes due to the lack of health facilities" as a result of the Israeli damage to the health facility. 

Experts say taking over a hospital is far from a military victory or an achievement, but merely psychological warfare.

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