By Seth Mandel
Monday, December 30, 2024
Gaza is reality as narrated by the Brothers Grimm.
Nothing is as it seems, and the truth is always darker than the way the story
is popularly told.
Last week, a woman claiming to be a doctor in Gaza got a
wave of attention after posting a picture of her feet supposedly swelling from
the cold. It turned out that the temperature wasn’t exactly freezing—a low of
50 degrees Fahrenheit. And the good doctor had posted an image not of her own
feet but of the main picture on the Wikipedia page for a particular toe
condition.
In fact, the medical personnel in Gaza are rarely what
they seem. A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a long personal diary
from the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. The paper’s
introduction to the diary mentions dismissively that Israel “claims” Hamas is
using the hospital. Readers then get about a thousand words from the hospital
chief, Hussam Abu Safyia.
Just a few days ago, the
IDF rounded up 240 terror suspects from that hospital, including Safyia.
According to the IDF, of the first 21 “patients” evacuated from the hospital,
13 were terror operatives who tried escaping on stretchers and in ambulances.
This shouldn’t have come as much of a shock: Safyia’s
predecessor was a Hamas official who admitted
that the hospital was used as a Hamas command hub after the IDF raided Kamal
Adwan a year ago.
Medical professionals who aren’t what they seem, working
at hospitals that aren’t exactly hospitals, fits a general theme of this war.
At around the same time the IDF was closing in on Kamal
Adwan, headlines in the BBC
and CNN
accused Israel of killing several journalists in one strike. The predictable
outrage ensued before Israel released a
Palestinian Islamic Jihad roster found in Gaza that proved the IDF had indeed
taken out terrorists, not civilian journalists.
In September, the Emmys awarded a Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine activist for her “coverage” of the
war, despite her work with the designated terrorist organization being
well-known by then. The media have already mourned as fallen journalists a
Hamas tank operative, a deputy Hamas commander in its Khan Younis Battalion, a
Hamas drone operator, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket specialist, an
engineer in Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade and the like, as noted here.
As for Kamal Adwan itself, when Hamas operatives returned
to the area in the fall, they did their best to draw the IDF to buildings
around the hospital itself, hoping to protect the higher-level Hamas officials
stationed in the hospital (along with weapons). When it finally cleared the way
to the hospital complex, the IDF evacuated the premises, moving hundreds of
patients and actual medical personnel to other facilities. Two Hamas cells
tried to escape and were eliminated via drone. Medical equipment was then
transferred to the nearest hospital, as were the patients. There is so far no
evidence of civilian deaths at the complex.
That leaves a very different impression from the one
pushed by media. But it’s easy to see through the mainstream press’s
smokescreen if you try: The medical staff and patients who aren’t medical staff
or patients trying to flee the hospital that isn’t a hospital; the journalists
who aren’t journalists getting caught in the field of battle rather than at a
newsroom working the phones; the teachers who aren’t teachers gathering at
schools that aren’t schools.
And the aid workers that aren’t aid workers—who are these
folks even trying to fool? When Israel’s Channel 12 was finally given access to
the Palestinian side of one of the crossings, their cameras surveyed a staggering
amount of aid just sitting there, expiring by the day. This is all aid that
Israel has approved to be distributed, so it’s waiting for these humanitarian
relief organizations to live up to their names. Instead, they mostly complain.
So on top of everything we can add humanitarian
organizations that aren’t humanitarian organizations.
In Gaza, under the umbrella of Hamas, nothing it what it
seems. It’s always much more sinister.
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