The Israeli army continues its advance in the Gaza Strip. Since Wednesday, the IDF has been organizing a “targeted” operation against al-Chifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza. A military maneuver widely criticized internationally, in particular by the United States, which denies having given the green light to carry out this operation.
Even so, Israel quickly released photos and videos of Hamas weapons and uniforms from al-Chifa hospital. “The UN, in 2009, had already denounced that the al-Chifa hospital was used to hide weapons, notably under the operating rooms and under the pediatric rooms. Mahmoud Abbas had said the same thing in 2014,” recalls , at the microphone of Europe 1, the historian Georges Bensoussan.
Do not repeat the mistakes of the United States
For a long time, it has been an open secret in Israel, but as in all headquarters, that Al-Chifa hospital is the command center” of Hamas, he continues. “The real question for Israel was the following: should we or not attack the Hamas command center when it is located under a hospital?” asks the author of the work “The origins of the Israeli-Arab conflict” .
For the latter, “the Israeli army took the hospital without attacking. It did not destroy. Remember the hospital in Mosul, when the Americans took it, they razed it, literally “, adds Georges Bensoussan. “We can read there, we saw the images, they did not destroy anything, they entered through the emergency department, then they reached the underground,” he continues, believing that the IDF was taking precautions as part of this operation.
But for the historian, “we are in the presence, in this conflict, of an inversion of realities, of a reversal of the aggressor into the attacked which astonishes and which, I believe, will astound historians in 20 years.” Proof of this is that former Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin urges Israel not to repeat the errors of the past and in particular the errors of the United States which, “by fighting against terrorism, ended up feeding the filthy beast of terrorism,” he judges.
Dominique de Villepin’s comments deemed “inept”
“Indeed, reacting like the United States is fueling hatred, fueling resentment, nourishing and raising new generations of terrorists,” believes Georges Bensoussan. But the Jewish state does not apply the same strategy as the United States, he continues. “They do not systematically destroy everything in their path. They advance slowly, gradually,” he gauges, because “they are aware that we must prepare for the future. One day or another, we will have to live with these populations”.
But Dominique de Villepin criticizes the Jewish state for having only a military strategy behind the country’s counterattack, without anticipating the future. “If Israel had only had a military strategy, they would have destroyed Gaza City in 48 hours. So Villepin’s comments are inept,” concludes Georges Bensoussan.