HonestReporting Refutes Washington Post’s Claims of Lack of Evidence Hamas Used al-Shafia Hospital as Base

On December 22, 2023, the Washington Post published an article with the click-bait headline “The Case of al-Shifa: Investigating the assault on Gaza’s largest hospital.”

However, the media watchdog organization HonestReporting has cut the Washington Post’s claims down to size.

“Washington Post Publishes Speculative Hit Piece to Muddy the Waters of Israel’s Shifa Hospital Raid” by Simon Plosker, HonestReporting, December 22, 2023:

A November Washington Post op-ed headline read: “Evidence confirms Israel’s al-Shifa claims, so critics move the goal posts.”

Now, a Washington Post investigation into the “assault on Gaza’s largest hospital” appears to have taken that headline as a challenge as they lay out the case that “evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the [al-Shifa] hospital as a command and control center.”

Let’s take a look at their claims:

1. Hamas does not appear to be operating out of al-Shifa

Assertions that Hamas has abused Shifa’s protected status go back many years. So it was hardly a surprise when, as The Post put it, “Weeks before Israel sent troops into al-Shifa Hospital, its spokesman began building a public case.”

Indeed, it was weeks before the IDF took the hospital. Throughout this war, Israel has surrendered the element of surprise in order to minimize the risk of Palestinian civilian casualties. So, given the likelihood that the IDF would reach Shifa, it would have been surprising had Hamas not used the available time to mount a clean-up operation in advance of the IDF’s arrival.

The Post, however, attempts to make the case that Israel committed a war crime for raiding the hospital because it appeared that the hospital was not being used by the terrorists at that exact moment when the IDF took the facility.

Yet, International Law dictates that “injury to civilians…which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.” The Post readily admits it has no access to either the Israeli intelligence or that of the US, which also stated it had intelligence to back up Israel’s assertions. So this implied accusation falls flat.

2. The tunnels uncovered by the IDF “showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.”

While the underground tunnel uncovered by Israeli forces after the raid does point to a possible militant presence underneath the hospital at some point, it does not prove that a command node was operating there during the war.

“A possible militant presence underneath the hospital at some point”? How many hospitals have military-grade tunnels built underneath them? Why is The Post not asking why there is a tunnel there at all?

Instead, it attempts to show that its estimate of where the tunnel network spreads under Shifa cannot be proven to exactly match the intelligence claims made by the IDF in prior weeks. We do not know how much of the network has been explored by IDF soldiers. We do know that the IDF has specifically tried to avoid sending its forces physically deep inside the tunnels due to the risk of booby traps and other dangers to Israeli soldiers. So it’s hardly surprising that the IDF has prioritized destroying such tunnels rather than escorting foreign media on extensive tours. It is worth noting that where the IDF has transparently allowed foreign journalists to see the evidence for themselves, the media have done their utmost to minimize or dismiss the evidence….