Gaza – Together – The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory said that the effects of the massacre committed by the Israeli army inside the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City and its surroundings, which is still unfolding nearly two weeks after the end of the operation, shows that the army committed war crimes and crimes against humanity that are full-fledged and extend to a limit. The same, including carrying out unlawful executions and killings against civilians, and trying to hide the evidence of the crime by burying the bodies of the victims and mutilating them in the hospital courtyard.
The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory stated that its field team, which was present inside the Shifa Medical Complex during the Israeli army’s storming and later during the recovery of dozens of bodies about a week after the end of the military operation, documented horrific scenes of body parts and bodies scattered in the courtyards of the hospital, which also contained a hole that the army had dug and placed a nu
mber of people in it. From the bodies of victims after their field execution.
The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory stated that its ongoing investigations, including dozens of testimonies it documented during and after the military operation carried out by the Israeli army in the Shifa Medical Complex and its surroundings over the course of two weeks after it was stormed, show that he committed many serious crimes against everyone who was there, including murder and execution. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians were targeted, while the fate of dozens of others remains unknown and are now missing.
In addition to the unlawful killings and executions, the Israeli army deliberately subjected hundreds of sick and wounded inside the hospital to inhuman conditions that put their lives in imminent danger of death, especially through siege, starvation, and denial of access to health care, in addition to forcing thousands of Palestinians who had taken shelter in the medical complex. They were forced to leave, before the
complex was completely out of service as a result of the Israeli army destroying all its departments and rooms, bulldozing its courtyards, and burning its buildings, most of which became destined to collapse.
The Euro-Med Monitor explained that it documented new testimonies about crimes of targeting, killing, execution, siege, torture and forced displacement carried out by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and its surroundings, including medical and journalistic teams, women, children, the elderly, the displaced, the sick and the wounded, while the medical teams are still trying to count the numbers of victims. And the exhumation of bodies that were inhumanely buried by the Israeli army, in an attempt to hide evidence of the serious crime he committed there.
Euro-Med had indicated in a previous statement that its initial estimates indicate that more than 1,500 people were killed, wounded or missing, including women and children, as a result of the Israeli massacr
e in the Shifa Medical Complex and its surroundings, based on the testimonies it received and its observations, as there are hundreds Of the bodies inside the complex and in the surrounding area, including burned bodies and others with their heads and limbs cut off.
A field researcher with the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory who was present inside the complex while the Israeli army stormed it said: ‘I was inside one of the hospital buildings, and suddenly we heard the sound of intense and continuous gunfire that continued for a long time… After a while, a young man arrived and told us that the Israeli army had sent him to inform us that the men should take off their clothes.’ They stay on one side, while the women have to wait at the back. We took off our clothes except for our boxers, and there were elderly people with us. Inside the room, a quadcopter drone entered and began circling us and photographing us. After dawn, they sat us down into groups of five people in each group, with their hands tied behin
d the neck. When he asked Some of the elderly people went to the bathroom or took water. A soldier said that they should relieve themselves sitting, and that we (the Palestinians) are enemies so they should not provide us with any food or treatment. The soldiers would take some people from the room and then we would hear their screams of torture outside, before they “They bring them back in deplorable conditions.”
Euro-Med researchers, along with hundreds of civilians inside the hospital, were forced to flee, naked and barefoot except for their underwear, as they walked long distances before they reached the Baptist Hospital area in eastern Gaza, and residents gave them some clothes and shoes.
Heba Raafat Abu Hasira told the Euro-Med crew about the Israeli army’s execution of a number of her family members in front of her, including her mother, two sisters, and brother: ‘On the morning of March 18, Israeli forces stormed our house located behind the Shifa Medical Complex amidst gunfire. One of the soldiers
raided the room.’ In which we were sheltering, me and my mother, ‘Bushra Saeed Abu Hasira’ (55 years old), and my sisters, ‘Rozan’ (25 years old), ‘Rania’ (19 years old), and ‘Saif’ (21 years old), and we were all sitting in one corner. We have a winter cover. The soldier pointed his weapon at us and continued shooting, and with every movement we made, he fired at us again. My mother and my brothers were killed, and I was left. I was screaming and telling him that we were civilians. He stopped shooting, and the soldier approached me and raised the weapon to my head, then lowered it, and then he pulled me away. Outside the room, I asked to stay with my family, and he told me, ‘Shut up.’ After that, another soldier came and took me out of the house and asked me to leave the house, so I went out into the street barefoot, and tanks were surrounding the place and stationed at the beginning and end of the street. The soldiers opened fire at me, and I was hit by a bullet in my left hand. As a result, I ran barefoot
across the glass and stones scattered in the streets. A nail entered my foot, and my hand was bleeding from the site of the injury, as was my foot, but I continued running through them until I reached a friend’s house, somewhat far from the besieged area of ??western Gaza.’
Mrs. Maha Sweilem, a nurse at Al-Shifa Hospital, also reported to the Euro-Mediterranean crew about the disappearance of her husband, the paramedic, Abdulaziz Mustafa Salman, after his arrest by the Israeli army in Al-Shifa Hospital: ‘My husband and I work as volunteers in the hospital, so after our house was bombed, we moved to Al-Shifa Hospital and we stayed there, and on the day of the raid (March 18) I was working in the surgical building in the chest intensive care department. The Israeli army ordered the medical staff to come down from the building, and we were approximately 50 people, and they told us that we would return again after they gathered us in The hospital yard, but they took 35 of us without knowing where, while they rel
eased the remaining 15. But after they told them to get out and released them, they shot four people in front of my eyes, including two doctors who were taken for treatment at the Baptist Hospital.’
She added: ‘My husband took him to the square, forced him to take off his clothes, and arrested him, and until now I know nothing about him. My husband is not accused of anything, unless [the army] considers volunteering to serve and treat the wounded to be a charge.’
Mr. Ghassan Riad Qunita told the Euro-Med crew about the circumstances of his father’s body, Riad Qunita, being found on Monday, April 8, as it had begun to decompose: ‘We live in the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital, opposite the newly dug cemetery. The Israeli army stormed the house on the day The next storming of the hospital (March 19) was approximately 10 a.m. My father was sleeping on the bed because he was old and had a broken back and could not stand on his feet. During the storming, they gathered everyone who was in the house, separated the w
omen and children from the men, forced the men to take off their clothes, and tortured them. But my father did not force him to do that because he was old. When they took the women out to move to the south, they took him out with them, along with my wife’s sister’s husband and my sister’s husband, both of whom were approximately 65 years old. They went out and it was raining and it was difficult to walk in the streets. As they grew older and tired, it became more difficult. They were unable to walk, and when my wife’s sister’s husband stopped, the soldier told them to continue walking and leave him and threatened them that if they did not continue, they would be shot, so they left him out of fear, and since then we have been searching for him everywhere. Today (April 8) we found his body lying on the wall of a building. Surgery at Al-Shifa Hospital from within.’
Doctor Khalil Ahmed Hamadeh, Director General of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Evidence, told the Euro-Med team during his work searching for the b
odies of dead and missing people in the Shifa Medical Complex, that the medical and forensic teams are facing great difficulties in the Shifa Medical Complex and its surroundings in trying to ‘collect the remains of the victims.’ And inventory them and identify their owners, especially since many of them are ‘deformed’ or ‘have already begun to decompose.’ He added: “We are trying to identify the dismembered bodies of the victims, which began to decompose significantly and were buried with bulldozers. The bodies are dismembered and incomplete, and the remains and body parts are scattered in different places, but we are working as much as possible.”
Doctor Jadallah Al-Shafi’i, Director General of Nursing at Al-Shifa Hospital, told the Euro-Med team: ‘After the end of the siege, the medical, nursing and administrative staff who were present in Al-Shifa Hospital were accounted for, and we did not know their fate until now. The total number of missing people was 47 people, including 4 victims. Among the medical
teams who were She was at the helm of 15 doctors, including ‘Ahmed Al-Maqadma,’ an anesthesia technician, 17 nursing staff, the director of the Pharmacy Department, ‘Mohammed Zaher Al-Nono,’ 5 laboratory technicians, one of whom was killed by the army, and the head of the Engineering and Maintenance Department, ‘Bahaa Al-Kilani,’ in addition to 7 of Administrators and clerks, this is what has been limited so far.’
He added: ‘Medical teams, together with the municipalities, are exhuming graves, searching the mounds of bodies and the remains of the victims, and counting the bodies. Most of them are decomposed, difficult to identify, and unknown. The people cannot identify them, and there are no possibilities to examine the bodies to identify them. With the sweeping, many bodies were scattered. You will find an arm or a foot.’ Or the skull of a corpse but not the rest of it.’
Euro-Med confirmed that the Israeli army carried out its crime in the Al-Shifa Complex without the slightest respect for the rules of in
ternational humanitarian law, and in flagrant violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality, military necessity, and the special protection enjoyed by civilian hospitals and medical teams, or the protection enjoyed by civilians, whether in their capacity or as non-participants. Direct hostilities, including the displaced, or the protection enjoyed by the wounded and sick, and prohibiting targeting them, even if they are military personnel.
Euro-Med stressed that the destruction of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, and within the framework of its medical and societal symbolism for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, comes within the framework of the crime of genocide carried out by Israel against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, and at the forefront of the systematic, organized and broad plan. The scope that Israel is implementing to destroy the lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, turning it into an uninhabitable place that lacks the most basic components of life
and basic services, through a series of integrated crimes, the most serious of which is the systematic and widespread targeting of the health sector and putting it out of service through destruction and siege, bringing it to the point of no return, and depriving the Palestinians of Chances of survival, life, recovery, and even shelter.
The Euro-Med Monitor said that the attempts of the Israeli political and military institutions to remove the international protection enjoyed by hospitals in the Gaza Strip, as they are among the civilian objects that enjoy special protection under international law, and to claim that armed factions are using hospitals as military headquarters and/or to carry out military attacks, without proving the validity of this. The allegations come within the framework of justifying their targeting and destruction, noting that the special international legal protection enjoyed by civilian hospitals must always be respected, and all civilians in them must be protected from the danger of
military operations, including targeting and siege.
The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor renewed its call on international bodies and institutions present and operating in the Gaza Strip, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to document all forensic evidence related to the grave violations committed inside and around the Shifa Medical Complex, and to hear the testimonies of victims and witnesses.
Euro-Med called on the international community to intervene immediately and seriously to protect Palestinian civilians from the crime of genocide that Israel has been committing in the Gaza Strip for more than six months, including protecting the sick, wounded, displaced, medical teams and journalists, protecting what remains of the health sector working, and working to immediately rebuild it as it is part of the Of the necessary infrastructure to save the lives of Palestinians there, and to use real means of pressure to force Israel to stop its serious and ongoing crimes and ens
ure its compliance with international law and the decision of the International Court of Justice, and to hold accountable those responsible for committing these crimes.
Source: Maan News Agency