Hamas’s illegal use of Gaza hospitals since (and prior to) Oct. 7th, 2023, to store weapons, hide fighters and plan operations is extremely well documented. However, every time the IDF engages in an operation at a Gaza medical facility to root out terrorists, British media outlets often frame the incident as an Israeli ‘attack on a hospital’, while referring to the terror presence prompting the raid as merely an ‘Israeli claim’ – often giving more credibility to denials by groups like Hamas.
A case in point is Sky News coverage of the IDF’s operation against Hamas terrorists last last month who were using the Kamal Adwan Hospital, in the territory’s north, again, as a military base.
Hundreds of patients, doctors and caregivers were reportedly evacuated prior to the raid, and, according to the IDF, the 20 people killed during the battle were all terror operatives – without any known civilians dying. Some 240 suspected terror operatives were arrested – including 15 who allegedly participated in the Oct. 7th massacre.
The director of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, was also detained. The IDF said he’s suspected of being a Hamas operative.
Sky’s short video report on Dec. 29th by Yousra Elbagir about events at Kamal Adwan is one of the most egregious examples of a media outlet determined to advance the desired narrative of the terror group which, 15 months ago, carried out the worst antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust, while all but ignoring Israeli information on the raid.
Here’s it is:
First, note that the Sky correspondent spreads the propaganda, based on an evidence-free claim by the Hamas-run health ministry, which accused Israeli troops of intentionally setting fires in several parts of Kamal Adwan, including at a lab and the surgery department – an accusation the IDF emphatically denied. IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said that “While IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that [was soon] under control,” adding that a preliminary investigation found “no connection” between military activity and the fire.
In fact, Elbagir went further than even Hamas, telling Sky’s viewers that Israel is “burning hospitals” (plural) in northern Gaza, in a way suggesting that it wasn’t merely a claim, but a fact.
She then says that patients were forced to walk out “in the cold“, “half naked” with their hands raised. However, she presents no evidence that the fighting aged men you see in the video are in fact patients of the hospital.
In the last few seconds of the report, Elbagir mentions that Israel “says” that it is “targeting these hospitals because of terrorism activity, but”, she editorialises, “it has not provided sufficient evidence to support this claim“.
The fact that the Sky News journalist took the baseless accusations of the Oct. 7th pogromists, accusing Israel of ‘burning’ a medical facility, at face value, while flippantly dismissing Israeli evidence regarding terror activity at the same hospital, is another example of the outlet’s disturbing slouch towards outright pro-Hamas propaganda.
