NOURNEWS- On 15 November, as IDF started its raid against the al-Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, which was turned into a somewhat safe place for the displaced people of the enclave to find safety away from the barbaric attacks of the Zionist regime, which to this moment has claimed the lives 12,000 people which 4800 of it are children, the Zionist-western axis and their media outlets dramatically increased their biased report restating IDF’s baseless narrative that “Hamas is using the al-Shifa hospital as one of its bases of operation.”.
Just a day before the Israeli forces tightened their siege on the hospital, the Pentagon felt it necessary to justify IDF’s claims by claiming that it had credible intelligence inputs that al-Shifa was being used by Hamas. When asked about the source, the spokesperson refused to comment, but admitted that the US did not have its own boots on the ground. Which is to say that what it is presenting before the world as evidence to start a bloodbath is supplied by the Zionist regime and there is no independent nor truthful party to verify Israel’s claims.
On 16 November, the state of Israel scored a major victory in its war against the people of Gaza when it captured ‘al-Shifa’ hospital. Israeli soldiers, the IDF, were seen foisting their flag on the top of the hospital. Once again, they reiterated their claim that the hospital was a cover for the military operation of Hamas. In fact, it was much more sinister than that. It was the base from which Hamas was conducting its military action. This claim made al-Shifa a ‘legitimate’ target for Israeli forces.
That Israel has been lying all along was proven after it conquered the hospital, which it alleged was a military base of its enemy. It was reported by sympathetic media that “In a video filmed at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, showed about 10 guns, ammunition, protective vests and Hamas military uniforms, some of which he said were hidden behind M.R.I. machines, others in nearby storage units and some behind what he described as a ‘blast-proof door.'” But the media platform took caution to say that, “The assertions made in the video could not be independently verified.”
No independent verification, no third-party check, and yet, we are asked to trust the Zionist regime, the same regime that has lied numerous times since the beginning of its vicious genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza on 8 October, just because NATO and the Americans say so? We are shamed if we raise any doubt and ask how can we not trust a country like Israel. Is it not the only true democracy in the West Asia? Does it not espouse the values of enlightenment and western moral values? And above all, was it not wronged on October 7 and does it not have the right to defend itself? Even though the Zionist regime is a usurper entity and according to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, it is the Palestinians who have the right of self-defense against the Zionist regime and the occupier has no right to do so.
Western governments have been asking us to believe what Israel presents before us as evidence because it is a victim of Hamas – an assertion presented as truth without verification. American political scientist Norman Finkelstein rightly asked, even if slightly sarcastically, why “Hamas didn’t take the weapons to its command-and-control center beneath al-Shifa. No, it decided to leave these weapons lying around in the radiology ward to give Israel a photo-op.”
The published video and so-called evidence by IDF were all set up by Israel, and its fakeness was so obvious that it was immediately called out and laughed at. The video was so embarrassing that the IDF quietly deleted it without any further explanation. IDF gave no explanation because Israel knows that it does not need to explain its lies. They are merely an act and seen as necessary by its patrons and Western allies to justify its massacre of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s lies regarding the al-Shifa hospital were the latest lies of the child-killing regime, but it was preceded by several others that tell us about the nature of the apartheid state of Israel. Let us take a look at some of the recent lies of Israel:
“The ‘infamous’ calendar: They showed a paper on a wall of a hospital that they said was a ‘list of terrorist names’ – Those who read Arabic recognized it as having the days of the week written down and nothing more.
While the Zionist regime has cut off Gaza’s access to water, food, and electricity to commit its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, Tel Aviv claimed they’re sending incubators to the hospital, despite the real issue being the lack of fuel needed to run the said incubators, which are available anyway. Tragically, three premature babies and many ICU patients died as a result.
Israel claimed that projectiles fired by Palestinian militants hit al-Shifa hospital on November 10. The NYT debunked that claim and showed that it was Israeli shelling that led to the death of 7 Palestinians there that day.
They said they targeted a car with “terrorists” in Lebanon. It emerged that the vehicle had three little girls, their mother, and grandmother. Only the mom survived the shelling, and her three daughters and mother were killed by Israel.
They showed a video of a nurse in a hospital in Gaza saying Hamas is holding people as human shields. That video was debunked as fake and the woman was a Mexican-Israeli actor who was paid by the Zionist regime to make the said fake video!
They targeted an ambulance transferring injured civilians on its way to Rafah crossing (south of Gaza) and said the ambulance was targeted at north of Gaza and was transferring members of Hamas, even the UN was forced to call out Israel’s lies regarding this matter.
The most blatant lie of Israel was its propaganda to whitewash its air strike against Gaza’s Baptist hospital that claimed the lives of more than 500 injured civilians, medics, and staff members of the hospital. At first, the Zionist regime stated that it was a resistance rocket that targeted the said hospital, then after its failure to sell this story, IDF published a fabricated Arabic audio claiming that captured members of the resistance confessed and that they were responsible for Baptist Hospital’s tragedy which once again was debunked.
Yesterday the claim was that Hamas was using al-Shifa as a “command center” to hold hostages and that they stored weapons there. Now it’s about tunnels. A senior Israeli official said that the purpose of the IDF operation at the al-Shifa hospital wasn’t to rescue hostages, but to locate and expose a Hamas tunnels hub that connects the hospital with other parts of the Gaza Strip.”
Lie after lie. And one after the other, they get debunked. Even CNN was forced to debunk the Zionist regime’s latest lies, and it was stated in CNN’s report regarding IDF’s claims on the existence of Hamas tunnels under the hospital: “There is certainly no indication yet that troops have uncovered a multi-level tunnel structure with underground chambers — of the kind illustrated in an animation presented by the army spokesman at a briefing almost three weeks ago.”
What is and should be treated as true by any sensible person is what independent sources, that is, those who are neither Palestinian nor Israeli, have been saying. Those who have worked at al-Shifa for decades. They have been refusing Israeli claims of the hospital being a military base or cover for Hamas. But Israel’s powerful allies choose to believe its lies. While knowing well that Israel was lying, they decided to back it and support its genocide in Gaza. After all, these are the same countries that had invented the truth of Iraq hoarding WMD to invade the country and destroy it.
Lies are necessary because they work. They work because they appeal to our prejudices. It is more likely that the civilized world would accept that Hamas beheaded babies and burnt them because there is already a belief that Hamas is made of non-humans and savage beasts, so Hamas must be capable of such a horrible act!
In modern warfare, it is important to lie first, because it sticks in the minds of the people. Then after it is found to be a lie you claim that it was immaterial because irrespective of truth, was it not necessary to attack Gaza? Was it not important to remove Hamas? If the lie serves a higher purpose, why not use it? That is what the world heard after the US and Britain shamelessly accepted that they were lying about the WMD. Similarly, the world is asked to disregard the fact that Israel lying because removing the horrible Hamas is necessary. Destroying Hamas, a liberating movement that is fighting against an occupier, is much more important for western governments than the lives of innocent people of Palestine which are being massacred behind every lie of the Zionist regime.
But what is more frightening is that even after being proven wrong, lies are repeated by powerful people. US President, Joe Biden, repeated only yesterday the lie of Hamas beheading and burning babies even after it was debunked and Israel itself went silent about it. This lie is repeated brazenly because the liar knows that there is a constituency for it. He also repeated the lie that Hamas was working from under the hospitals, even when Israel has failed to provide any evidence for that.
The lie of hospitals being command centers or hiding tunnels were used by the West to give a free pass to Israel to attack hospitals. Then Israel said that everyone which it attacks or kills is bound to be a Hamas front or accomplice. So, doctors, journalists, and United Nations workers have all been declared as Hamas fronts and therefore legitimate targets. There is no outrage in the so-called civilized world!
Why is Israel so confident that its lies would be bought by the civilized world? Is it because there is a powerful opinion that supports the elimination of people like the Palestinians, who are seen as backward and less human? It might sound slightly offending but is it not the case that, as an observer wrote, “Israel’s obvious lies aren’t meant to convince people who don’t want to kill Palestinian children, they are meant to placate the guilt of people who DO want to kill Palestinian children.”
What is encouraging is that there is an equally significant number of people even in the countries that are officially backing Israel who are not ready to be driven by Israel’s lies, who are not ready to give Israel a free pass, and who knows that the most ethical thing is to stand by the oppressed people of Palestine. The massive public demonstrations in the world are forcing the hands of the Western governments one by one to state the truth and call Israel what it is, a criminal, Zionism, racist, apartheid, fascist, and occupying regime that does not see Palestinians as humans, but as their officials have said it numerously, they see Palestinians as “Human looking animals”.
As the apartheid regime of Israel is seeing its defeat in its war against Hamas, it's becoming even more barbaric than before, now, it is even more important than ever that the international organizations, free people of the world, and any human being who has a heart, to see the truth of this one-sided massacre of Palestinian people and pressure the Zionist regime and its western allies to end this genocide and do not use the right of self-defense as a free pass for the Zionist regime and its crime. No occupier has any right to self-defense, nor has any right to victimize itself when it faces the consequences of its crimes.
BY: Homayoun Barkhor
NOURNEWS