Israel destroys al-Wafa hospital in Gaza City; cabinet considering expansion of Gaza operations

Al-Shifa, though, may be one of Israel’s next targets. Hamas’s underground HQ is located under the hospital, and Hamas’s spokespersons, when talking to the press, do so from a corridor in the hospital’s oncology department (see more below).

During the previous two rounds between Israel and Hamas – Cast Iron operation in December 2008-January 2009 and Pillar of Defense in November 2012 – Hamas spokespersons, when talking to the press, used to carry sick children in their arms, some still attached to IV feeding tubes, in the (correct) belief that with sick children in their arms, they would be safe from Israeli attacks.

Hamas has compromised the Gaza health care delivery system in other ways. Israel has been reluctant to agree to humanitarian cease-fires (although it has agreed to two of them in the last two weeks) because Hamas often prevents ambulances, sent by the Palestinian health authorities and the Red Cross to pick up wounded Palestinian civilians, from carrying out their tasks, and instead uses the ambulances to transfer Hamas fighters from one position to another and reinforce Hamas positions with weapons and ammunitions.

The war toll so far:

• 738 Palestinians have been killed —- 400 since Israel’s ground operation began on Friday — with about 300 of them Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. The rest are civilians, among them 152 children
• 4,620 Palestinians have been injured
• 32 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground war, and 134 injured
• Two Israeli civilians and a Thai citizen have been killed in Hamas rocket attacks
• 150 Palestinians suspects have been captured in Gaza, and 67 of them taken to Israel for interrogation; the others were let go
• Israel has also killed several key militants in the last three days, among them: Akram Shakhar, a central operative in the Khan Yunis area who was in charge of rocket launchings; Sha’aban Dahduh, commander of a battalion in Gaza City; Mahmoud Ziada, a resident of Jabalia, the commander of a regiment in the Strip’s north; and Said Abu Ma’amar, a commander of a regiment in Islamic Jihad’s Rafah division.
• A number of Twitter and Facebook posts from Gaza Wednesday reported the assassination of Mohammed al-Sinwar, one of the heads of the Hamas military wing and the commander of the Khan Yunis region in southern Gaza. Sinwar played a leading role in the abduction of Gilad Shalit and was even Shalit’s jailor during part of his imprisonment. His brother, Yihye, is regarded as one of Hamas’s political leaders and served a lengthy period imprisoned in Israel. There was no confirmation of Sinwar’s killing.
• The IDF has so far found 35 tunnles leading from towns in Gaza into Israel, and destroyed 9 of them; the others will be destroyed in the next two days
• 140,000 Palestinians, nearly 10 percent of the population, have fled their homes, after IDF warnings, ahead of Israeli attacks on Hamas positions and arms stationed in their neighborhoods and under their homes
• 3,100 buildings have been destroyed in the Gaza Strip, including 83 schools, 26 health-care facilities, and 22 mosques used by Hamas to store weapons and as military positions

Other developments:

• Secretary of State John Kerry left the region without a breakthrough in the efforts to reach a cease fire.
• Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, following an urgent request by Israel, has asked Congress for $225 million for continued production of Iron Dome systems. Congress is likely to approve the request. With the additional funds, the U.S. Iron Dome-related aid to Israel in the current fiscal year will reach $500 million. Hagel’s request notes that Israel has a sufficient number of Iron Dome missiles (called Tamir) left in its arsenal, but that Israel is running short on certain “components,” which Hagel declined to offer details about.
• Egypt’s president al-Sisi, in a speech marking the sixty-second anniversary of the 1952 Free Officers revolution in Egypt, made the first public references to the war, saying that Egypt will not modify its cease-fire proposal, which stipulates that the two sides will stop firing before any negotiations on any other issues. Israel has accepted the Egyptian proposal, but Hamas has rejected it, making a series of demands that must be met before the shooting stops.
• Sissi’s words were also aimed at two rivals of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, which have encouraged Hamas to reject the Egyptian proposal.
• Under growing American and Saudi pressure, Qatar appears to be softening somewhat its unwavering support for Hamas and opposition to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal. Shimon Peres, the outgoing Israeli president — he leaves office today – used his last official function, a meeting with the UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, harshly to criticize Qatar — in language not typically associated with the diplomatic and cautious Peres — as the main funder of terrorism and instability in the region. Peres said that Qatar has been using its billions in petro-dollars not to advance education, health, better infrastructure, and progress in the region – instead, it has chosen to use its billions to support the most extreme Jihadist groups in the region, including Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
• Turkey is no longer a party to the negotiations. The extreme language used by Prime Minister Erdogan in his vehement denunciations of Egypt and Israel – in the latter case, using language that verges on open anti-Semitism – has marginalized Turkey and made it irrelevant (four days ago, Erdogan said that Israel has “surpassed Hitler in barbarism,” while the Turkish newspaper Yeni Akit, which is tied to Erdogan’s ruling AKP party, has run editorials attacking Turkish Jews, demanding that they apologize for defending Israel during the current Gaza conflict, and saying that the Turkish Jews are guests in Turkey and, as such, should watch their behavior).
• The Israeli cabinet is meeting this morning in an emergency session to discuss the expansion of the Israeli offensive. In a TV interview yesterday, Treasury Minister Ya’ir Lapid hinted that if the Israeli offense is expanded, it may well include the killing of Hamas political leaders. Lapid said that the leaders of a terrorist organization which targets Israeli civilians “will not find shelter in their underground tunnels.”
  Ten years ago, on 22 March 2004, Israel killed Hamas founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and a month later, on 17 April 2004, it killed the organization’s co-founder, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, after Hamas sent suicide bombers to attack the Ashdod Port, a step Israel considered as a strategic escalation of Hamas’s attacks on Israel. Israel has since killed many of Hamas’s military leaders, but has largely abstained from attacking the political leaders of the organization.
  Killing Ismail Haniyeh will require destroying the underground bunker where he and his family are hiding (and this may be related to the reports of impending Israeli attack on al-Shifa hospital, under which Hamas HQ is located), but killing Khaled Mashal, Hamas’s political leader outside of Gaza, should pose less of a challenge for Israel. He used to live in Damascus, where he enjoyed the protection of Bashar al-Assad’s secret service, but since leaving Syria for Qatar – after Hamas switched its support from the Assad regime to the Jihadist Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS rebels – his protection is not as air-tight. He has also developed a taste for staying in 5-star hotels and eating in posh restaurants, making him even more vulnerable.
  Israel already tried, and almost succeeded, in killing him in an attack in Aman in 1998.
• In a speech in Doha, Mashal repeated Hamas’s position that the organization was willing to accept a “humanitarian” cease-fire if its conditions are met.