Al Jazeera Promotes Inflammatory Documentary Claiming an IDF War on Gaza Hospitals

The documentary makes false claims which must be debunked.

By Channa Rifkin, HonestReporting

There’s a destructive rumor that Israel and the IDF are committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Qatari-owned propaganda machine Al Jazeera has only perpetuated this false narrative. Time and time again, it ignores evidence, employs questionable “journalists” on the ground in Gaza and leaves out important context when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Al Jazeera’s “Gaza: The War on Hospitals” has garnered upwards of 175,000 views on YouTube since it was published on June 1, 2024. The main narrative it claims, is that Israel is deliberately “targeting and bombing” health facilities and killing health workers in order to a) collapse the health infrastructure in the Strip, and b) expel Palestinian civilians from the northern Gaza Strip, even if that means many of them are killed along the way.

Coincidentally, Qatar has hosted Hamas leaders and has been a financier for Hamas activities in the Strip, so Al Jazeera and Hamas are interconnected in a strange web of funds and agendas.

Here are several points out of many which must be debunked.

1. Al Jazeera claim: Today’s “expulsion” of Gazans from the northern Gaza Strip and anywhere else in Gaza over the last 10 months by the IDF is a “Nakba” repeat.

Why it’s false: The IDF’s intent is not to “expel” Gaza civilians or to massacre them. Hamas plant themselves in civilian areas purposely. IDF warning civilians to leave for their own safety is not a “threat” or a method of “ethnic cleansing,” it is for their own benefit. By doing so, the IDF also loses its element of surprise and puts its soldiers in more danger. In every ceasefire-hostage deal discussed, there was never a question whether Gazans would remain in Gaza. This is just a temporary maneuver because just as in each area the IDF has fought in, getting civilians out of a war zone is crucial to minimizing deaths.

2. Al Jazeera claim: Bombing and targeting hospitals is a “major war strategy” of the IDF.

 

Why it’s false: This is insinuating a strategy by the IDF to target civilians for some sort of purpose. Throughout the film, there is a major emphasis on Israel bombarding residential areas and medical facilities without any context or mention of the fact that hostages were being held inside hospitals, and nearly no mention of a Hamas presence. But as previously stated, Hamas operates in hospitals, schools, mosques and within residential areas. This is exactly the reason why the IDF warned civilians to evacuate the area.

3. Al Jazeera claim: Hospitals are systematically targeted, and IDF targeted and killed sick people and families on their way to al Ahli Hospital and the Jordanian field hospital, and struck ambulances.

 

Why it’s false: This claim can be discredited with one fell swoop, as HonestReporting has previously exposed Al Jazeera interviewee Ghassan Abu Sitta as a limelight-lover who spreads conspiracies about Israel to the media. In at least one instance on January 17, the IDF provided evidence opposing the claim that the Jordanian field hospital had been shelled and how civilians could have been caught in crossfire.

4. Al Jazeera claim: There is no definitive proof that Hamas is/was operating in any Gaza hospitals.

Why it’s false: When Hamas is finally mentioned more than halfway through the film, there is a denial that there was a Hamas presence at all in these hospitals. The IDF did not reveal its sources or how it knew for sure that hospitals like al Ahli or al Shifa were being used as Hamas command centers, but did reveal what media-friendly evidence it could. IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in a press conference back on October 27, 2023, that the rest of it was shared with the intelligence community, which corroborated its authenticity. In this video of a France 24 audio-recorded interview, a British doctor who worked at al Shifa hospital revealed that there were parts of the hospital used for “non-medical purposes.” HonestReporting also did its own investigation into al Shifa Hospital to verify the credibility of evidence that Hamas operated out of it.

5. Al Jazeera claim: The Al Ahli hospital incident on October 17 was an IDF strike.

Why it’s false: In the early hours after the explosion, many publications, including Al Jazeera, among others, reported false numbers and attributed blame to Israel without waiting for the facts to emerge. Sure enough, Human Rights Watch delivered an initial report of its findings, as well as French military intelligence. Both stated that not only could the 500-person death toll be inflated by the hundreds, but that it was actually a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that fell in the hospital’s parking lot, not an IDF strike on the hospital itself. But nearly a year later, Al Jazeera chooses to stick to its propaganda… unlike any reliable news source.

The film concludes with the following claim: Israel deliberately targets civilians “in what to many is a disproportionate form of collective punishment.”

The truth: In an urban environment like the Gaza Strip, where Hamas and PIJ position themselves in the midst of residential areas and humanitarian zones, the IDF’s mission of protecting civilians becomes enormously complicated and challenging. While the IDF aims to minimize the loss of civilian lives and goes to great lengths to achieve this, the harsh reality of war and Hamas’ embedding in the civilian population sadly makes this unavoidable. Yet, as urban warfare expert John Spencer has said, the IDF has gone above and beyond in its methods to minimize harm to civilians.