Untangling Popular Anti-Israel Arguments: Critical Thinking
about the Israel-Hamas War
Note to readers: See previous APOLOGIA post for Chapter 7. (Also, Table of Contents with links is listed below. Or download pdf of the whole book here.)
Note to critics: Please read the whole of my little book (including notes) before offering criticism. Thanks.
Chapter 8: Israel targets a hospital?
Objection: What about the Israeli bomb that
destroyed the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza on October 17, 2023, killing 500
civilians?
Reply: This is a false report. Canada’s Department of National Defence sets the record straight as follows:
Analysis conducted independently by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command indicates with a high degree of confidence that Israel did not strike the al-Ahli hospital on 17 October 2023. Based on analysis of open source and classified reporting, the Department of National Defence [DND] and the Canadian Armed Forces [CAF] assess that the strike was more likely caused by an errant rocket fired from Gaza. This assessment is informed by an analysis of the blast damage to the hospital complex, including adjacent buildings and the area surrounding the hospital, as well as the flight pattern of the incoming munition. Reporting from Canada’s allies corroborates DND/CAF’s findings.1
Significantly, the false report was given to western reporters by Hamas and uncritically promulgated by many western news outlets and thus served as anti-Israeli propaganda. In my view, those reporters should publicly retract their stories—over and over again, to ensure the antisemitic lie is stopped—and the United Nations should charge those journalists and news agencies with incitement of hatred against Jews.
It should also be noticed that since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, at least 9,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel—and hundreds of those rockets misfired and landed in Gaza.2 And it should be noticed that Hamas uses hospitals as shields.3,4
NOTES
1. Statement
from the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces on the
recent strike at al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, Government of Canada, Department
of National Defence, October 21, 2023.
2. Emanuel Fabian, The war in numbers: 9,000 Hamas members killed, 11,000+ rockets fired into Israel, The Times of Israel, January 14, 2024. (The 11,000+ rockets mentioned in the headline include 9,000 from Gaza, 2,000 from Lebanon, and 30 from Syria.)
3. See How Hamas uses hospitals as shields during war, National Post, November 3, 2023. See too the report by S. Aday et al., Hamas’ use of human shields in Gaza, NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, June 6, 2019. This NATO document reports the following:
Hamas’ most common uses of human shields include:
- Firing rockets, artillery, and mortars from or in proximity to heavily populated civilian areas, often from or near facilities which should be protected according to the Geneva Convention (e.g. schools, hospitals, mosques).
- Locating military or security-related infra-structures such as HQs, bases, armouries, access routes, lathes, or defensive positions within or in proximity to civilian areas.
- Protecting terrorists’ houses and military facilities, or rescuing terrorists who were be-sieged or warned by the IDF.
- Combating the IDF from or in proximity to residential and commercial areas, including using civilians for intelligence gathering missions.
4. It should be noticed that very little was said in global media when Hamas rockets hit the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, Israel. See Robert Sherman and Damita Menezes, Rockets strike Israeli hospital four times, News Nation, October 31, 2023. The Barzilai Hospital sustained three direct rocket hits, according to Ido Efrati, Direct Rocket Hits, Partial Protection: How a Hospital Operates in Israel's Most Bombarded City, Haaretz, November 1, 2023.
Table of Contents (links)
Chapter 1. Israel is engaging in colonial retaliation?
Chapter 2. Israel is a powerful state and thus the oppressor?
Chapter 3. Israel is not a legitimate state?
Chapter 4. Israel occupies Gaza?
Chapter 5. Gaza is like a Jewish ghetto?
Chapter 6. What about Gabor Maté?
Chapter 7. What about Gabor Maté, again?
Chapter 8. Israel targets a hospital?
Chapter 9. Israel’s attack on Gaza is as bad (or worse) as Gaza’s attack on Israel?
Chapter 10. Israel is wrong to cause Gaza to suffer?
Chapter 11. Israel is guilty of genocide?
Chapter 12. Israel’s response to Hamas is not proportional?
Chapter 13. Israel should agree to a permanent ceasefire?
Chapter 14. Israel should embrace a two-state solution?
Chapter 15. Conclusion and prayer
Appendix 1: Criticizing Islam is Islamophobic? (Part 1 of 2)
Appendix 2: Criticizing Islam is Islamophobic? (Part 2 of 2)
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