[shykes]

This reminds me of the Al-Ahli hospital incident in Gaza, when a mysterious explosion at a hospital was immediately blamed on an Iraeli strike - first by Hamas, then by the international press. A precise death toll was immediately available: 500 killed. Israel urged caution as they investigated, but were ignored.

Eventually, it was established that 1) the casualty number had been a fabrication, 2) the explosion was in the parking lot, 3) it was NOT caused by an Israeli strike, but by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that had fell short.

Soon the press was forced to issue corrections - New York Times [1] , Le Monde [2], BBC [3]...

This incident looks VERY similar. Which is not surprising, since Hamas was trained in information warfare by the IRGC. Note that Al Jazeera (the media arm of Qatar, who funds Hamas and hosts their leaders in Doha) is enthusiastically amplifying this story with no apparent effort to cross-examine Iran's official source.

I predict that this story will turn out to be fabricated as well.

UPDATE: preliminary reports from the OSINT community seem to indicate that the story was indeed a fabrication... https://x.com/tarikh_eran/status/2027784301840846939

[1] https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/the-new-york-times-e...

[2] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/10/24/a-no...

[3] https://deadline.com/2023/11/bbcs-international-editor-grill...

[I-M-S]

What the comment fails to mention is that Al-Shifa hospital was ultimately destroyed by Israeli forces, with grave civilian casualties, and no Hamas tunnels ever found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital

[Sabinus]

The Wikipedia article you link says that Hamas tunnels were found under the hospital, and did have entrances near the hospital, but that no proof was provided that they were using the hospital and nearby tunnels as a 'command and control' centre.

[shykes]

My comment is about Al-Ahli, not Al-Shifa. Those are two different hospitals.

> Al-Shifa hospital was ultimately destroyed by Israeli forces

It was damaged by a series of battles between Hamas and IDF, because Hamas militants embedded themselves within it - like they embedded themselves within all civilian infrastructure. That is the reality of urban war against a terrorist group.

> with grave civilian casualties

Hamas alleged grave civilian casualties. Israel contests it. Again, just like the Al-Ahli incident, Hamas rushes to publish suspiciously precise casualties and reframes an urban battle as a genocidal massacre; naive newsrooms uncritically publish it; wikipedia editors quotes it; then people with an axe to grind endlessly reference it in online arguments like this one.

With Al-Ahli, we got lucky. Independent evidence made it impossible to ignore that Hamas was lying. In many other cases, it is impossible to independently verify how many civilians were truly killed in this or that battle. You have to either believe the IDF, or Hamas.

> and no Hamas tunnels ever found

Al-Shifa was controlled by Hamas and used as a military facility. Hostages were held there. After the ceasefire, Hamas used it as a jail and torture center for Palestinian dissidents.

Or do you believe Israel sent troops inside a hospital in a warzone, at great risk to their safety, to destroy a random hospital with no military value?

[tovej]

The Palestinian rocket story was never confirmed, and it seems unlikely that the rockets from PIJ were the cause. Their ballistic trajectory did not match with the hospital, and most or all their fuel had burned [1]. I recommend you read the whole text, it's quite short.

In other words, the new "established facts" about Al-Ahli are also questionable, and part of Israeli propaganda. It remains to be seen what the truth is in either case.

The fact of the matter is. Eventually Israel destroyed a fuckton of hospitals and schools in Palestine, on purpose. So this particular story in itself does not really matter.

[1] https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/israeli-disi...