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SvennoJ on 14 February 2024
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How many war crimes per hour are enough for the international community to actually do something


Doctors Without Borders condemns Israel's evacuation order for Gaza's Nasser Hospital

Doctors Without Borders has condemned the Israeli military's order to evacuate patients, staff and displaced people from Gaza's Nasser Hospital on Tuesday. The organization's staff remained at the medical complex in Khan Younis on Wednesday to treat patients "amid near impossible conditions," the medical charity, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said in a statement.

There has been heavy fighting near Nasser Hospital for weeks, trapping staff, patients and displaced people inside the medical complex with "very little access to essential supplies," MSF said. “People have been forced into an impossible situation: stay at Nasser hospital against the Israeli military’s orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are a part of daily life,” said Lisa Macheiner, a MSF project coordinator in Gaza.

“Hospitals should be considered as safe places and shouldn’t even be evacuated in the first place."

With so much destruction in northern Gaza and the current offensive unfolding in the southern part of the besieged enclave, MSF said that many people have no safe place to flee. “People ask us ‘Where is it safe? Where should we go?’, but there is no answer to that, and it really leads to a feeling of despair,” Macheiner said.



Israeli snipers shoot and kill civilians as they flee hospital in Gaza, according to eyewitness

Doctors and medical officials in Gaza say Israeli snipers have shot dead a number of people as they tried to leave the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza over recent days. A trauma surgeon at the hospital said he was eyewitness to the shootings and said at least two people were killed by snipers on Tuesday, with more shot and injured.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have ordered hospital staff and patients inside the medical complex to evacuate and said it had “opened a secure route” for civilians to leave. But at least eight people trying to escape along the route came under gunfire on Tuesday, said the surgeon, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

In a series of voice notes, the surgeon said medical teams at the hospital have been under intense bombardment for at least three days. His testimony was shared with CNN by his colleague. Among those injured, the surgeon said, was a 16-year-old boy shot with four bullets at the hospital gate.

"The tanks and the snipers (are) surrounding the hospital from all directions,” the surgeon said in a voice message early Wednesday. “They threatened to bomb the hospital within half an hour."

The Nasser Medical Complex is the largest remaining functioning medical facility in Gaza. Reached for comment late Wednesday, the IDF confirmed to CNN that Israeli troops are operating in the area of the Nasser Medical Complex and said they will get back to CNN if anything changes, but did not respond directly to the allegations. Israel has repeatedly said that its military forces do not target civilians.

Israeli forces killed handcuffed prisoner sent in to evacuate Nasser Hospital: Doctor

Israeli forces shot and killed a handcuffed prisoner after sending him in to evacuate Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis, Ahmed Moghrabi, the head of plastic surgery at Nasser Hospital, has said. “They sent a hostage with cuffed hands to the hospital telling us that we should evacuate. They opened fire and they killed the hostage as well,” Moghrabi said in a video posted on social media.

Mohammed El Helou, a Palestinian journalist at the hospital, told the Intercept that the young handcuffed man was sent in to tell people to “get out of the hospital because they are going to blow it up”. The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that Israeli snipers killed three people at Nasser Hospital on Tuesday, the same day the young man who was sent in to evacuate the hospital was reportedly killed.

Hundreds of medical staff and patients who cannot move are still trapped inside the hospital with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) saying that people were afraid to evacuate the hospital after reports of people being shot outside.

Deadly Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip as people flee Rafah

There’s been an intensification of Israeli military strikes in the past few hours across different areas in the Gaza Strip, in particular, in central and southern Gaza. In Rafah district, the eastern areas of the city have been widely bombarded by Israeli artillery, destroying agricultural lands adjacent to the border with Egypt. In the city of Khan Younis, there is a clear bombardment, with the demolishing of complete neighbourhoods. There have been non-stop attacks there and clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli soldiers.

But the most critical situation is in the central part of the Gaza Strip where 14 Palestinians have been reported killed in an attack that targeted a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp. A series of air strikes have also targeted the Maghazi refugee camp and Deir el-Balah city.

We need to clearly understand that these are areas where Palestinians have recently been fleeing to as they are trying to get away from a potential military incursion in Rafah where Israeli jets continue to pound the city. Alongside in the northern part of Gaza, three Palestinians have been killed in Gaza City after a residential building was targeted.


This picture, taken from Rafah, shows smoke billowing over Khan Younis in the distance following Israeli bombardment on the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday

Israeli strike kills six, including children, in Gaza City car attack

Six people, including children, have been killed by an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City in northern Gaza. Al Jazeera’s Anas Al Shareef reports on the aftermath of the strike.

A warning – some of the footage in this report may be distressing.

Families left with memories of cousins killed by Israeli snipers

Three-year-old Imad Abu Al-Qare’a and his cousin Hadeel were killed by Israeli snipers. Now, their families only have memories of the two.

PRCS shows ambulance riddled with Israeli bullet holes

The Palestine Red Crescent has shared a video via X that it says shows one of its ambulances that was severely damaged at the hands of Israeli soldiers. The video clearly shows bullet holes in the front windscreen of the ambulance.

The PRCS says that the ambulance was shot at and its crew assaulted “while they were attempting to transfer oxygen cylinders from Nasser Hospital to Al-Amal Hospital about a week ago”. Per the Geneva Convention governing the laws of war, medical transports are to be respected and protected in all circumstances.

Palestinian diplomat shares details of Israel’s killing of his relatives

Husam Zomlot, ambassador to the UK, has identified the Palestinian girl who was found hanging from a wall in Gaza, half of her body severed, as his wife’s cousin. Seven-year-old Sidra Hassouna was killed along with her family when Israel shelled a residential building in Rafah. The family had been displaced from the north of Gaza and took shelter in the south.

“My wife’s aunt Suzan, her husband Fouzy Hassouna, two of their sons, Muhammad and Karam, Karam’s wife Amouna and her three children [7-year-old twins Sidra and Suzan, and 15-month-old Malik] were all killed,” Zomlot wrote on X.

US ‘devastated’ by killing of Palestinian-American teen by Israel

The US State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs has decried the killing of 17-year-old Mohammad Ahmad Khdour, who was fatally shot by Israeli forces this week. “The United States has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens. We urgently call for a quick, thorough, and transparent investigation, including full accountability,” the office said in a social media post.

The statement echoes Washington’s calls for an investigation into the killing of Tawfiq Ajaq, another 17-year-old US citizen killed in the West Bank last month. But Israel rarely holds its forces and settlers accountable for attacking Palestinians.

In 2022, Israel also killed two US citizens: Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh and Omar Assad.

US President Joe Biden is currently working with Congress to secure $14bn in additional aid for Israel.