Misuses and abuses of ambulances and hospitals by Hamas and other Palestinian militants

Testimony from Palestinian witnesses and doctors in Gaza reveal that Hamas and other Palestinian militants regularly abused hospitals and ambulances during fighting with Israel. Specifically by operating inside hospitals and shooting rockets from immediately nearby. Moreover on more than one occasion Hamas attempted to hijack ambulances for there own needs. These tactics endager Palestinian lives and make it difficult for the IDF to distinguish between legitimately military targets and civilians. 

1. Testimony from a Palestinian ambulance driver quoted in an Australian newspaper reveals that Hamas members on several occasion attempted to Hijack ambulances.

• "Mohammed Shriteh, 30, is an ambulance driver registered with and trained by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.His first day of work in the al-Quds neighbourhood was January 1, the sixth day of the war. "Mostly the war was not as fast or as chaotic as I expected," Mr Shriteh told the Herald. "We would co-ordinate with the Israelis before we pick up patients, because they have all our names, and our IDs, so they would not shoot at Mr Shriteh said the more immediate threat was from Hamas, who would lure the ambulances into the heart of a battle to transport fighters to safety."

• Getting out of the ambulance and entering the house, he saw there were three Hamas fighters taking cover inside. One half of the building had already been destroyed. "They were very scared, and very nervous … They dropped their weapons and ordered me to get them out, to put them in the ambulance and take them away. I refused, because if the IDF sees me doing this I am finished, I cannot pick up any more wounded people. "And then one of the fighters picked up a gun and held it to my head, to force me. I still refused, and then they allowed me to leave."

•  Mr Shriteh says Hamas made several attempts to hijack the al-Quds Hospital's fleet of ambulances during the war. 

2. An official from the Leftists Palestinian people party in Gaza told Newsweek that Palestinian militants firing firing from positions all around the Al Quds Hospital during the Cast Lead war.

• "One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated... Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. He shrugged that off, having a bigger beef with Hamas. "They failed to win the battle." Or as his fellow PPP official, Walid al Awad, put it: "It was a mistake to give Israel the excuse to come in."

3. A 25 year old Palestinian witness named Magah al Rachmah told the Italian news paper Corriere della sera that Hamas hid in ambulances and hospitals.

•   "The men of Hamas took refuge mainly in the building that houses the administrative offices of al Quds. They used ambulances and forced ambulance drivers and nurses to take off their uniforms with the paramedic symbols, so they could blend in better and eludee Israeli snipers."

4. The Palestinian Authority claimed that Hamas took over hospitals and pediatric centers and used them for detention and torture.

• "Hamas used Gaza hospitals as detention centers. . . Hamas specifically seized some buildings in Shifa, the main hospital in the city, al-Nasser pediatric clinic and the psychiatric hospital."

5. Armed Hamas gunmen in civilian clothes also roamed Hospitals, in some cases murdering "suspected" collaborators according to the NY Times.

• "On Monday, Dr. Ashour was not the only official in charge. Armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roamed the halls. Asked their function, they said it was to provide security. But there was internal bloodletting under way. In the fourth-floor orthopedic section, a woman in her late 20s asked a militant to let her see Saleh Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband. She was turned away and left the hospital. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Hajoj was carried out by young men pretending to transfer him to another ward. As he lay on the stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head. Mr. Hajoj, like five others killed at the hospital this way in 24 hours, was accused of collaboration with Israel. He had been in the central prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges; when Israel destroyed the prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital. But their trials were short-circuited"  

6. Palestinian militants using ambulance as cover to transport themselves from danger: