Israel, the withdrawal from al-Shifa hospital. A trail of destruction and death

Israel, the case of al-Shifa hospital is emblematic to describe the situation in Gaza

Since yesterday, heavy anti-government protests have been raging throughout Israel. Tens of thousands of people gathered in front of the Israeli parliament building in Jerusalem clamoring for Benjamin's resignation Netanyahu and an immediate agreement for the release of the hostages. It is the largest anti-government protest since Israel launched its assault on Gaza. One of the protesters, Einav Moses, whose father-in-law, Gadi Moses, is among the prisoners, told the news agency Associated Press he said “it's like he doesn't really want to bring them back.” The crowd has surrounded the Knesset for blocks, and organizers vow to continue until the end. until the requests are obtained. Meanwhile, after a two-week raid, the Israeli army has withdrawn from al-Shifa hospital leaving behind a trail of destruction and death.

The Israelis claim to have killed only armed Palestinian men and seized weapons and intelligence documents “preventing harm to civilians, patients and medical teams.” The WHO, however, claims the opposite, declaring that since Israel began the siege of the facility on March 18, 21 patients died and the level of destruction of the complex and medical machinery within the hospital is widespread. To date, according to data provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health, they are almost 32,800 Palestinians were killed and beyond 75,000 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the Hamas attack on October 7 remains at 1,139. In an interview given a few hours ago to the Qatari newspaper Al Jazeera, the Norwegian doctor and activist Mads Fredrik Gilbert declared that “Israeli occupation forces tonight ended 78 years of courageous medical history.”

Mads Gilbert, currently head of the department of emergency medicine at the University Hospital of Northern Norway and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Tromsø, spent many years in Gaza, including working at al-Shifa hospital. During the interview Gilbert recalled that the hospital it had been built in 1946, two years before the declaration of the birth of Israel, and since then it was the most important flagship hospital for healthcare for the Gaza population of the entire Strip. “The siege destroyed the legacy built over decades of hard work. It's such a sad day, I cried all morning“. The fate of the 107 patients who are in a seriously critical state, transferred two days ago to an old part of the complex, remains unknown. “People are now looking for the bodies on site, some have found them in an advanced state of decomposition, unrecognizablewith i worms coming out of the eyes”. Gilbert has been banned from entering Gaza since 2014 due to his political positions and ideas.

The decision was shocking at the time the indignation of public opinion and the Norwegian government which asked for the immediate annulment of the measure. The Israeli Foreign Ministry, then led by Avigdor Lieberman, clarified that the ban covered entry into Israel, not Gaza. And it is worth remembering once again that Israel is the only transit point available to enter the Strip when the Rafah border from Egypt is closed. And in Rafah, the last strip of land not yet surgically devastated, 1 and a half million desperate people are crowded together, reduced to starvation and certain death from hardship and disease, the survivors await the Armageddon that Israel, with the help of the United States, is preparing to unleash. At the end of the interview Gilbert said, visibly moved “”It's a sad day, I cried all morning” and then added “The worms that come out of the corpses of the al-Shifa hospital are actually worms that come out of the eyes of the President Biden and EU leaders who they do nothing to stop this horrible thinghorrible genocide”.