The evolution of the war between Hamas and Israel now has a name that defines the current situation and will mark the future of that confrontation, which every day threatens to become a larger problem. The name is Al-Shifa (healing house, in Arabic), the name of the largest and oldest hospital in Gaza. The implications around this health center are currently the biggest complication on the chess board of geopolitics and even Israel is aware that its future is at stake in that building. For now, the possibilities of starting a negotiation on the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas have been suspended since the terrorists have demanded that before any talks, Israel must abandon the siege of the hospital.
Al Shifa existed before the 1948 Israeli war of independence, as it was in operation during the British occupation of Palestine. Over the years it grew until it became the main health center in Gaza and took on many clinical specialties such as oncology or pediatrics. According to its own figures, it currently has 1,500 beds and more than 4,000 people work there. In Spain there is no hospital of that size. The Reina Sofía in Córdoba, the largest in the country, has 1,300 beds.
Despite its history as a reference center and its agreements with non-governmental organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, the hospital became involved in controversy in 2014. That year, Amnesty International issued a report in which it denounced Hamas for having used hospital facilities. Al-Shifa to torture and execute people whom he accused of collaborating with Israel or active in Fatah, the Palestinian force that governs the West Bank and opposes Hamas.
“Inevitable” extension
That accusation multiplied after the attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 against Israel in which 1,500 citizens were murdered and 240 kidnappings occurred. The Netanyahu government assured that the Hamas headquarters, that is, the place where the massacre was planned, is located in the alleged tunnels dug under the hospital. In the invasion of Gaza, in which more than 11,000 Palestinians have already died, Al-Shifa thus became the symbol of the war.
From the Arab perspective, however, the view is radically different. Former Jordanian Army Major General Fayez Al-Duwairi, one of the region’s leading military and political analysts, recently told Al Jazeera that Al-Shifa is key “because it has become the symbol of the firmness” of Jordan. Palestine, in addition to being the image of the only Government that resists in Gaza. Al Duwairi, in this sense, recalls that the voice of the Palestinian National Authority is being that of the Strip’s Ministry of Health, governed by Hamas and on which the hospital depends. “Israel wants to put an end to that symbolism and to do so Al Shifa must be silenced,” the soldier said.
In this context, the struggles around Al Shifa are not only military. Both Hamas and Israel are fighting an image battle. The first has denied that the medical center is his military base. Israel, for its part, continues to affirm that it is the headquarters of Hamas and has denounced, for example, that if it does not have fuel for its generators it is because the terrorists seize it to provide electricity to their tunnels. In this struggle for legitimacy, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, issued a statement on Sunday in which he accused Hamas of using hospitals as human shields.
This accusation clashed squarely with the rhetoric that is being used by one of the most delicate actors in the region: Iran. On Friday, the Foreign Minister of the Ayatollah regime, Amir Abdolahian, indicated that the extension of the conflict in the Middle East is “inevitable” in the face of Israel’s bombings of the civilian population in Gaza. The words represented a very harsh warning from one of the main political actors in the region and who leads organizations such as Hamas, or the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Moral dilemma
For his part, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, spoke on Sunday with the emir of Qatar, Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani, to discuss Gaza. In addition to the release of the hostages, both studied the situation in the hospitals. A military escalation in the area like the one Iran is using would fully affect the American Army, which has been attacked in Syria and maintains two aircraft carriers in the region.
And in Israel, the debate about Al Shifa is also hot. The newspaper Haaretz, opposed to President Netanyahu, wrote in a column that the biggest “moral challenge” facing Israel is how to fight for a hospital. For the prime minister, the question is another. “Israel risks losing its right to self-defense if it is prohibited from attacking targets hidden behind civilians,” he said in recent hours.
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