One child killed and several people injured in Israeli strike on maternity ward at Nasser hospital

[Donkees]

‘The enemy killed Donia and killed all her hopes’

Yesterday, we reported about a deadly Israeli air strike on the maternity ward of the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. Dr Mohamed Zakout describes to Al Jazeera how a little girl named Donia Abu Mohsen was killed instantly.

“The shell penetrated the ceiling and directly hit her. Parts of her head and blood are splattered on the wall as you can see. It is a brutal crime,” he said.

Donia had both legs amputated and was receiving treatment in the hospital after she was injured when her house was bombed, killing her family.

Abu Mohsen’s father, mother, and two of her brothers were killed in the first attack. A video shared online shows the immediate aftermath of the Israeli shelling with women and children screaming.

“Finally she lost her life. The enemy killed Donia and killed all her hopes. The enemy didn’t send us any warning or evacuation order. The enemy didn’t say anything before shelling our department,” Dr Zakout said.




https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/12/18/israel-hamas-war-live-israeli-strikes-on-jabalia-refugee-camp-kill-90

[onecaliberal]

1. What the entire fuck?

[Lonestarblue]

2. Surely bombing the maternity ward of a hospital is a war crime, even to those who excuse everything Israel does.

This war is no longer about Hamas. It’s about destruction of Gaza and everyone there.

[2naSalit]

5. Bibi channels pootin.

[Chainfire]

10. Is this war about security or lebensraum?

The way it is being conducted, and the comments of Israeli government leaders validates the question. What kind of peace can be built on the deaths of so many innocent people? The killing needs to stop.

[2naSalit]

3. But, but, but...

Antisemitism.

[David__77]

17. Basically...

[getagrip_already]

4. Half a story .....

Last edited Mon Dec 18, 2023, 11:42 AM - Edit history (1)

The other half is why they fired on the hospital. They were likely firing at a hamas fire team in one of the hospital windows, pinning down or attacking idf forces.

Sounds a little different when you get two half doesn't it?

Hamas commonly fires from hospital windows, from apartment complexes, from shopping bazaars, refugee camps, crowded places where return fire puts civilians at risk. Intentionally.

That's taf.

Edit:

This is a hypothetical. I was pointing out this is half a story. We don't know why a shell was fired at the hospital, or even who fired it.

[AloeVera]

6. I'm sure that was it.

[Prairie Gates]

8. "They were likely firing at a hamas fire team..."

I mean, you realize you just made that part up, right?

[Voltaire2]

9. 'they' are killing people in Gaza indiscriminately.

That has become obvious and defending this is ridiculous.

[Chainfire]

11. Which means that Israeli troops were within rifle fire distance of the hospital and carrying out offensive operations.

It takes two to tango...

[obamanut2012]

16. Link?

[David__77]

18. Maybe they saw shirtless men waving a white flag.

We don’t know, it’s true.

[Voltaire2]

45. When you are defending a war crime you are

on the wrong side.

[getagrip_already]

47. Do we know who fired the shot?

We didn't with the first rocket attack.

It turned out to be hamas.

Hamas is the ultimate villain here. They are the criminals.

So get the facts before you throw out accusations.

[Chainfire]

7. The child was certainly a Hamas terrorist.

The IDF converted her to a "good Palestinian." She probably planned the Oct. 7 attack. Yea, I know, what about....

The killing needs to stop.

[getagrip_already]

12. 100% in hamas control...

All they need to do is stop shooting. Turn over the remaining hostages.

Stop firing at idf forces from crowded civilian positions.

Too simple?

Something complicated in that?

[Chainfire]

13. Blame the victims, it makes it easier to accept the massacre.

[Igel]

15. That's not blaming the victims.

It's blaming the militants violating the conventional rules of warfare and endangering civilians.

Of course, this is all hypothetical and based on assuming that "we haven't heard any reason for while the missile was fired, so maybe it was ___". It could have been attacking a position occupied by Hamas and the target was considered worth placing the blood of innocents on Hamas' head(s). It could have been a Israeli bomb/missile that went astray. It could have been a Gazan missile, if they were firing them in the area, that went astray (they still launch missiles and mortars and, yes, Islamic munitions also misfire and go astray).

People are very happy to think that Israel just likes firing bombs and missiles at random to kill Gazans and I think that was probably the original point of saying we didn't know why the attack was launched. (The claim of randomness is actually silly on its face if the goal is genocide--you wouldn't bomb indiscriminately, you'd still use judgment to decide where to attack most effectively and efficiently achieve your goal. So we don't just assume ill-will, we also assume stupidity.)

[Autumn]

21. You do know infants and children are not militants. They are fucking blameless.

[AloeVera]

22. Public health weaponized as a tool of war.

Since you mention conventional rules of warfare, it can also be argued that Israel is violating the rules relating to protection of patients and hospitals. I'm not sure the "look what you made me do" defense will work with the ICC. It's not working at least in the court of public opinion.

I don't think it's random at all. There have been too many such attacks to be random or an accident.

Back in 2014, a maternity ward in a hospital was also shelled, killing 4 and injuring many others.

In the current war, there are at least 3 instances of maternity wards being hit.

More broadly, the public health system is being systematically destroyed, shut down and degraded. The last I heard over 160 medical facilities and over a hundred ambulances have been attacked. Hospitals are being systematically shut down and patients dispersed to the few remaining hospitals already overwhelmed by the steady stream of the newly wounded.

It seems to be a broad attack on the entire public health system, with maternity wards singled out for some reason.

Previous wars in Syria, Yemen and now Ukraine have seen this weaponization of the public health system. The NPR link is an interesting interview with the Director of Physicians for Human Rights among others. She descibes this tactic:

It is a devastatingly effective weapon of war because there are few greater ways of terrorizing the population, of breaking their will and lowering morale, than through attacking health care. An article in The Lancet called this strategy "the weaponization of health care."

This tactic elicits condemnation and outrage which certainly should not be confused with being "happy" as you put it.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/08/mounting-evidence-deliberate-attacks-gaza-health-workers-israeli-army/

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/03/16/1086982186/russias-strike-on-ukraine-maternity-hospital-is-part-of-a-terrible-wartime-tradi

[markpkessinger]

33. So tell us . . .

. . . how many deaths of innocents are justifiable in the name of self defense?

[markpkessinger]

35. . . .

[lapfog_1]

14. if the goal is to kill as many Palestinians as possible

this is a pretty poor execution of such a plan.

Does anyone posting here think that the IDF targeted a maternity ward in a hospital WITHOUT there being some sort of military reason?

And if you think that, why wouldn't the IDF simply flatten the entire hospital? In fact, why wouldn't the IDF simply kill everyone or nearly everyone in Gaza using MOABs ( I'm sure they have some or they could make enough themselves to destroy all of Gaza ).

Reasons for dropping a bomb on the hospital that are not simple "war crime" or genocide...

1. someone in the hospital is shooting at the IDF.
2. the IDF tracked a terrorist(s) to the hospital and decided to bomb it to take out that one or more terrorist ( not a very good excuse ).
3. It was a accident. Accidents do happen in a war.

[David__77]

19. Maybe it's the same reason they just killed three shitless men waving a white flag.

[lapfog_1]

25. that one seems to be poorly trained troops

ignoring stated policy.

I am certain it wasn't the goal of the IDF to murder 3 hostages with no shirts and waving a white bit of cloth...

War is not good for anyone caught in the crossfire...

I am certain that the IDF is "trigger happy" right now and ever since the ground invasion started. I do not understand why the troops have not been drilled and drilled in urban combat ( the most likely conflict for Israel in the last generation ).

After this is all over and Bibi is gone, the IDF and the intelligence community of Israel needs to be revamped from top to bottom.

There are sooo many failures that have led to the current situation. That said, none of those failures of intelligence, training, defense readiness, etc caused Hamas to kill over 1000 civilians in Israel including children.. and not by any accident, but by individually killing each civilian including children with guns or knives, or grenades or by burning people alive.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67192885

[Voltaire2]

46. Or the actual policy is shoot everyone.

[lapfog_1]

48. you hate Israel so much that you think an order was given to shoot everyone?

again, if that was the intent, why risk any soldier in a ground assault?

Hamas has no air defense. you could just bomb the shit our of Gaza from a nice safe distance.

Your statement is illogical and possibly antisemitic.

Hypothetical... I would give you a choice, liven is a Hamas controlled Palestine or a Jewish controlled Israel.
You have to pick one...

[Butterflylady]

52. We know what happened on October 7.

But that is no excuse anymore, Israel has fought back against Hamas and killed many Hamas fighters. How many more children does IDF have to kill before enough is enough.

Netanyahu has made it clear that he is not stopping till all Palestinians are gone.


*Please note I do NOT support any terrorists organizations. We have plenty of our own.

[lapfog_1]

59. so this is nothing more than a numbers game

Hamas sends terrorists into Israel and kills 1000 or 1200... men, women, children... and if the IDF in response kills X thousand then that is "fair". So now what? Israel should just withdraw and let Hamas rebuild?

And your statement that "Netanyahu has made it clear that he is not stopping till all Palestinians are gone" is simply wrong. At the current rate of death in Gaza, and assuming no one has babies, it would take 20 years to kill everyone. I don't like Bibi at all. I hope that Israel removes him from power... anytime now will do. And I hope that after the IDF kills as many Hamas as they can get their hands on... I hope both sides return to peace talks and 2 state or 3 state solution.

but right now... Hamas must be hunted down and killed or arrested.

[womanofthehills]

58. Agree & check out this video

IDF about to throw a grenade or smoke bomb or whatever at an ambulance & then stops when he sees press & cameras.

Link to tweet

?s=46&t=YZgyyp4w_z7vW3neKxa6cQ

[TexasDem69]

26. You won't get any reasoned response

Some folks—despite all logic to the contrary—think that Israel is trying to kill every Palestinian in Gaza. Those folks ignore October 7 and Hamas’ stated intention to kill every Jew in Israel. They also use every death in a war started by Hamas to cast blame on Israel. There’s only a handful of them, but they post an awful lot.

[lapfog_1]

29. ya I know...

I just want to make sure that people reading these threads a) know as many facts as possible, and b) not everyone on the left think the is all a plot by Israel to commit genocide.

I think a lot of people who are currently posting about how horrible Israel is right now would be absolutely shocked if they saw the videos created by Hamas and the videos shot by responding IDF and police to the massacre of civilians.

I have a daughter that loves to go to those electronic rave parties... in fact she just attended one that went on for 20 hours last weekend. She spent the early fall in Europe going to these DJ electronic raves, the one in Israel could have been easily on her list (Spain, Ireland, Germany). She traveled with a group of friends and camped out a lot and traveled by train from location to location (except for Ireland). If she had asked me about going to Israel, I don't know what I would have told her.

When the video the young lady from Germany (thankfully dead already) was paraded around in Gaza, nude in the back of a pickup, with thousands of young men and boys taking pictures and spitting on her and yelling "alahu akbar"... all I could think of was MY daughter and how easily it could have been her.

[Butterflylady]

53. So let me get this straight...

First Hamas was trying to wipe out Israel, but now it's Hamas did start this war to make Israel look bad. Which one is it?

[Mountainguy]

39. Israel could have killed everyone in Gaza a few times over by now.

Had they wanted to. They've been conducting operations for 10 weeks, the allies basically destroyed Dresden in a couple of days with far less advanced weapons.

But look at the picture, nothing exploded. The wall next to the bed has a hole in it and the shell landed right there. The angle to make that possible makes me think it was at a pretty sharp trajectory downward. Nothing Israel is dropping from the air isn't going to explode and blow that entire room or more apart. Possible a tank round hit it, but again it would have needed to be on a heavy downward angle to do that. That flimsy cinderblock wall isn't going to stop or drastically change the trajectory of a round fired from a modern tank.

All that together opens up the real possibility that it wasn't an Israeli munition at all. It wouldn't be the first time a misfired Hamas weapon hit a hospital and they blamed Israel for it.

[Butterflylady]

50. Wow, accident,

Well in that case, more power to IDF.



I don't think it was an accident.

[lapfog_1]

56. not every bomb, missile, or shell is precision guided, even in the USA arsenal.

and if you are flying over a densely populated area, especially at night, it is easy for things to go wrong.

One could argue that the IDF should avoid bombing or shelling anything within X meters of a hospital (at least 200 meters).

But the IDF is known to use the civilian population of Gaza as human shields.. using hospitals and schools and mosques to either hide or to launch their attacks at Israel.

So, yes, it could be an accident. The point is, nobody here KNOWS what happened and whether it was intentional to bomb a maternity ward of a hospital.

[Donkees]

20. 12-year-old Dunia lost her leg in an Israeli airstrike that killed her whole family

Dec 18, 2023
Dunia A., 12, and her family were struck by an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. Dunia's family was killed and she lost her leg.

While she was recovering in Naser Hospital in Khan Younis, an Israeli tank-fired shell hit the hospital and killed Dunia. This video was filmed on November 25 during a seven-day truce between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups and Dunia was killed on December 17, 2023.

[AloeVera]

24. Dunia had incredible spirit and resilience.

She wanted to be a doctor to help other children and artificial limbs so she could play with her siblings again.

She wanted the war to end.

She is just one out of thousands whose stories and terrible endings we will never know.

RIP Dunia.

[malaise]

23. Warcrimes

That is all

[TexasDem69]

28. What is a war crime?

The Nazi genocide? Rwandan genocide? Khmer Rouge? The U.S. intentionally killing civilians at My Lai? All war crimes and crimes against humanity. I see no war crimes by Israel.

Here’s a war crime for you — https://apnews.com/article/hamas-attack-oct-7-israel-militants-concert-866ac59803d23dfc03146c8d272670cc

260 civilians murdered at a concert by Hamas’ cowards. Point me to a post where you unequivocally called for the surrender of those murderers so they can hang—and yes, they should hang—for their crimes.

And of course, Hamas’ cowards are also rapists, but that gets ignored too. From the river to the sea, right?

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/hamas-israel-witnesses-evidence-show-sexual-violence-oct-7-terror-attack/

[madaboutharry]

30. The death toll at the Nova festival now stands at 364.

I thought you would not mind my adding that correction.

[TexasDem69]

31. Thanks

I’m always open to correction.

[Goddessartist]

51. Absolutely.

I'm aghast at those defending this, and claiming others are anti-semitic. I guess it takes all kinds, sadly.

[obamanut2012]

54. including in this thread

[Goddessartist]

55. Yep

that's what I was alluding to.

[leftstreet]

70. +1

[WA-03 Democrat]

27. Terrible as well as is this

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-bullhead-city-house-fire-over-the-weekend-killed-5-children-heres-what-we-know/ar-AA1lGKRI

5 kids dead in AZ

[madaboutharry]

32. I'll edit this post.

Last edited Tue Dec 19, 2023, 11:02 AM - Edit history (1)

I agree this is not a good news source.

[RubyRose]

34. Now that's more believable

[AloeVera]

38. LOL.

[AloeVera]

40. AgenziaNova?

I mean no surprise Israel might blame Hamas but shouldn't there be a more credible source that reported this? Let us know if you find one.

[Donkees]

44. Marc Garlasco, a former UN military analyst and war crimes investigator, told CNN the weapon's remnants ...

CNN has consulted weapons experts about images of the shell that were posted on social media. While being unable to verify their exact location, the remnants of the shell were seen during a longer video clearly taken within the Nasser complex.

Marc Garlasco, a former United Nations military analyst and war crimes investigator, told CNN the weapon’s remnants are consistent with an Israeli illumination shell.

“This is a variety of 155mm artillery. I’m totally certain the yellow is illumination,” Garlasco said.

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-12-19-23/index.html

[AloeVera]

49. Thank you.

[Basic LA]

36. This limitless rage is what Vikings called Berserker.

If a friend of yours--however provoked--was beating the crap out of someone past the point of unconsciousness, you would pull him off. You would stop the fight. He would rage and sputter & want to punch on. But if you were a friend, you would pull him off. Enough. Enough.

[madaboutharry]

37. That is a poor analogy.

On October 7th, it was Hamas that behaved like Berserkers.
Murdering, raping, mutilating, beheading, burning people alive…

[Basic LA]

41. Vengeance can't be bottomless.

Maybe this rage is older and deeper than you think. Enough is enough.

[Oopsie Daisy]

61. Stand by.

[Basic LA]

64. Meaning what?

[Oopsie Daisy]

65. Stand-by is a standard idiom that means "please wait" *

* and it was in response to the flawed declaration that "Vengeance can't be bottomless." Time alone will tell. Wait and see. Stand by. Sit tight. All in good time. Watch this space.

[Basic LA]

68. Wow, that's pretty good, actually.

You could write movie promos. Anyway, curiosity is peaked.

[Oopsie Daisy]

69. What a unique compliment. Thanks.

[Donkees]

42. Al Jazeera's Wael Dahdouh visited the Nasser Medical complex in Khan Younis and filed this report.

[Donkees]

43. UN agencies voice anger at attacks on Gaza hospitals

UN officials voiced anger and disbelief on Tuesday about the situation in Gaza hospitals, where injured people do not have basic supplies and children recovering from amputations are being killed in the ongoing conflict.

“I’m furious that children who are recovering from amputations in hospitals are then killed in those hospitals,” said James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency.

He added that the Nasser Hospital, the largest operational hospital left in the enclave, had been shelled twice in the past 48 hours.

Margaret Harris, World Health Organization spokesperson, described the situation in Gaza hospitals as “beyond belief” and “unconscionable”, Reuters reported.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/dec/19/israel-gaza-war-live-updates-hamas-ceasefire-un-security-council-usa-veto

[Oopsie Daisy]

57. Hamas is to blame. Why are they hiding among civilians? Why are they operating from hospitals?

That's the war crime. Hamas is a legitimate target no matter where the cowards hide. They are the ones putting civilians in danger. You know, Hamas has the power to end all of this by this time tomorrow. Release the hostages and/or return their corpses, and surrender. Until then, the war will continue and all the tragic and horrible death and violence and destruction will continue as well.

[Voltaire2]

60. There is no evidence opf that in this case.

However, hospitals are protected under international law. The presence of wounded combatants, for example, is NOT a violation of a hospitals protected status, nor are light weapons or armed guards .

There is no evidence that this facility was being used as a hamas base of operations.

[Oopsie Daisy]

63. Sure.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218538143

[David__77]

62. I wonder if the bombs that took her legs and her life were shipped from the US.

[iluvtennis]

67. 🙁