On Israel's destruction of Al-Shifa Medical Complex and one of the largest massacres in Palestinian history
I have spent the last couple of weeks reviewing footage and listening to testimonies emerging from Israel’s two-week siege of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, which ended at the beginning of April 2024, resulting in its total destruction.
Although Palestinians have been urgently sounding the alarm for months now, pleading for the international community to halt Israel’s unhinged attacks on Palestinian healthcare infrastructure, healthcare workers, and patients, I regret to report that we have failed to stop this latest catastrophe from unfolding.
Writing for the Electronic Intifada, Nora Barrows-Friedman sums up the grim reality: “Israel has turned the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip into a charred wasteland, a slaughterhouse, a cemetery.”
The Al-Shifa Hospital massacre left at least 1,500 people killed (until now hundreds of bodies have been recovered) about half of whom were women and children, making it one of the largest massacres of Palestinians by Zionist forces in Palestinian history, even deadlier than the Zionist massacres of Palestinians in Deir Yassin and Tantura combined. Considering how pervasive those massacres are to the Palestinian collective conscience 76 years later, there is no doubt that we will be mourning this particular massacre for generations to come. The testimonies of survivors from the besieged hospital and the homes surrounding it are harrowing.
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