If a picture paints a thousand words, then video speaks volumes about the tactics and strategy of Hamas — or so the IDF hopes. They have begun to drill into Hamas HQ in Gaza City, otherwise known as al-Shifa Hospital, while the UN and a number of countries ramp up their objections.

The World Health Organization demanded a cease-fire to restart operations at al-Shifa today, which they claim have totally collapsed as the IDF concentrates its operations against Hamas. “Gazan health officials” — AKA Hamas — claim that the situation is “dire and perilous” as a result:

The hospital and other medical centers in Gaza City had been struggling for weeks to maintain operations as supplies of fuel and medicine dwindled. The health ministry of Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, said on Monday that Israeli military vehicles had advanced to the gates of the hospital complex.

Patients at Al-Shifa have been dying because of a lack of power, according to doctors and Gazan health officials. Jihan Miqdad, a head nurse in the emergency room at Al-Shifa, said in a phone interview on Monday that patients who were on life support in the intensive care unit were dying because there was no oxygen.

“The situation here is catastrophic in every sense of the word,” she said.

The World Health Organization said on Sunday that three days “without electricity, without water and with very poor internet” had severely hurt Al-Shifa’s ability to provide care. It cited constant gunfire and bombings in the area, and said patient deaths had increased significantly.

“Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore,” the agency’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement.

The New York Times, by the way, is not giving up on “Gazan health officials.” There is one acknowledgment in the article that the health ministry is “controlled by Hamas,” so at least readers get a glimpse of the context. However, there are five other references to the ministry as though it’s separate from the terrorist operations that use health-care facilities as human shields for its command-and-control operations. They quote al-Shifa’s director to rebut allegations that Hamas uses the hospital as its headquarters, even though journalists have known it for a decade or more and it’s been an open secret among world leaders.

The NYT notes that the IDF has surrounded three other Gaza City hospitals to dig out Hamas operatives and infrastructure. Two of them are to the north of al-Shifa (Al-Nasr and Rantisi) and one to the south, al-Quds. The two to the north were evacuated after the IDF neutralized Hamas defenses around them, but there has been heavier fighting around al-Quds:

At Al-Quds Hospital, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Monday that “heavy gunfire” was continuing nearby and that “shelling and violent explosions were heard in the area.” A convoy of vehicles that had been traveling from the south to Al-Quds in an effort to evacuate patients and medical staff could not reach the hospital because of the bombardment, the agency said.

Indeed, there were violent explosions — but as the IDF’s drone video captures, it came from al-Quds hospital. Hamas terrorists shot RPGs at Israeli tanks from the roof and entrance of the hospital, disabling one tank, and then got shredded by return fire:

IDF says troops killed a terror cell that opened fire at Israeli forces from Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City.

According to the IDF, the cell had opened fire at troops of the 188th Armored Brigade with light arms and RPGs, while being “embedded within a group of civilians at the… pic.twitter.com/Tq8h9tj64d

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 13, 2023

According to the IDF, the cell had opened fire at troops of the 188th Armored Brigade with light arms and RPGs, while being “embedded within a group of civilians at the entrance of the hospital.”

The IDF says troops, with air support, returned fire at the Hamas operatives, killing 21 of them. No troops were hurt but one tank was damaged by an RPG, the IDF says.

Amid the exchange of fire, the IDF says civilians were seen leaving the hospital, and other operatives came out of adjacent buildings and hid among them to attack the Israeli forces.

After firing RPGs at troops, the IDF says the operatives fled back into the hospital.

RPGs don’t just materialize out of thin air. Hamas is clearly using these hospitals as weapons depots at the very least, as the IDF has insisted all along, which makes them legitimate military targets for Israeli forces. That’s especially true when Hamas uses the hospitals grounds for attacking the IDF.

Israel’s critics should ask themselves why Hamas ‘soldiers’ would build such defenses around hospitals in the first place. If there were no Hamas assets within those buildings, why expend precious defense resources on them in the first place? Wouldn’t Hamas use those resources where they need to protect command and control functions rather than non-military targets?

At any rate, this video should be instructive on that point. Will it be? Er … maybe. The EU actually scolded Hamas yesterday for using hospitals to shield their operations, but then lectured the Israelis on it anyway:

“The EU condemns the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields by Hamas,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement issued on behalf of the 27-nation bloc. “Civilians must be allowed to leave the combat zone.”

At the same time, he urged Israel to exercise maximum restraint, stressing the obligation under international humanitarian law to protect hospitals, medical supplies and civilians inside hospitals.

“These hostilities are severely impacting hospitals and taking a horrific toll on civilians and medical staff,” Borrell warned.

“Hospitals must … be supplied immediately with the most urgent medical supplies, and patients that require urgent medical care need to be evacuated safely,” he added. “In this context, we urge Israel to exercise maximum restraint to ensure the protection of civilians.”

Well, it’s pretty &%$#*@$ difficult to evacuate hospitals while Hamas fires RPGs from the grounds at IDF troops, isn’t it? If Hamas withdrew from the hospitals, then Israel could evacuate the civilians — just as they did at Rantisi and al-Nasr. Hamas won’t do that, though, because their entire strategy for destroying Israel relies on hiding behind civilians and assuming that Israel and the world would rather give up than look bad when those human shields die. And they do this while raining thousands of missiles indiscriminately on Israeli population centers, as they have done for most of the last 17 years, with barely a peep from the West let alone a lecture on “restraint” regarding civilians.

The rest of the world wants to keep playing along. This time, however, the Israelis do not — and the result will be the responsibility of the terrorists that the global community have coddled for far too long in all their iterations.

The latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today’s show features Michael J. New of NRO and The Catholic University of America:

• Did abortion sink Republicans in last week’s elections?
• Michael says the media have overblown the impact, especially in Virginia.
• We talk about the necessity for Republicans to get a unified approach on the issue and learn how to campaign on it positively.

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