An edited version of this article appeared in the Daily Telegraph and Courier-Mail on 15 January, 2025. 

At the end of December, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released yet another fundamentally flawed and thoroughly self-discrediting “thematic report”, entitled “Attacks on hospitals during the escalation of hostilities in Gaza (7 October 2023 – 30 June 2024).”

In this report, what caused the “escalation of hostilities” in Gaza after October 7, 2023 is left unmentioned. Also left unmentioned is why there has been “sustained combat in and around many hospitals,” in Gaza, with the implication being that the Israeli military may be intentionally attacking hospitals just for sport.

The report allows for the theoretical possibility that “Palestinian armed groups” could be using hospitals and medical units for military purposes, which, “if verified… would raise serious concerns that Palestinian armed groups were using the presence of civilians to intentionally shield themselves from attack.” The report then calls for “Independent and credible investigations” into the matter.

Yet there is overwhelming evidence, across decades, that Hamas and other Palestinian groups utilise medical facilities and ambulances in particular “to commit acts harmful to the enemy”. This is the vague and expansive phrase in international humanitarian law (IHL) that removes the legal protections to which hospitals and other medical units are otherwise entitled, albeit within the bounds of other IHL guiding principles such as proportionality, distinction and feasible precautions.

This evidence is not merely based on Israeli claims gleaned from interrogations and other intelligence, but includes years of international media and human rights NGOs reporting, independently corroborated US intelligence, Palestinian Authority assertions and, in the case of Al-Shifa Hospital, even footage released by Hamas and other terrorist groups themselves.

Ignoring such evidence typifies this report, which is so disingenuous it even refuses to correctly attribute responsibility for the infamous Al Ahli hospital parking lot explosion on October 17, 2023, implying it might be part of an alleged pattern of wanton Israeli attacks on hospitals. This is despite nearly every piece of open-source evidence as well as the intelligence agencies of France, Canada, the US and the UK pointing towards a misfired Palestinian rocket.

The report also blatantly misrepresents the relevant IHL provisions, even suggesting in its absurd “legal analysis” section that, contrary to all international legal precedent, even if Hamas leaders were using hospitals as bases of operations, this still would not justify any Israeli operations against those hospitals.

Such fabricated legal standards for Israel’s military conduct, coupled with misrepresentation of basic facts, render this thematic report – like almost everything produced by the United Nations on the current Gaza conflict – an activist anti-Israel document masquerading as analysis.

The UN report looks even worse given it was released just as the IDF was wrapping up a raid of Kamal Adwan Hospital, its third since December 2023. In that first raid, it arrested nearly 100 suspected terrorist operatives, including the hospital’s then-director Ahmed al-Kahlout, who confessed to being a Hamas lieutenant colonel and said dozens of medical staff were members of both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The IDF also reportedly found weapons stashed in neonatal incubators and elsewhere in the hospital.

In the latest raid, hundreds of Hamas and PIJ operatives reportedly hid in the hospital amid intensive operations and strikes against them in northern Gaza. These operatives had planted explosives and established fighting positions all around the hospital. In the process of evacuating patients, staff and those sheltering at the hospital to another nearby hospital and bringing necessary supplies, the IDF detained about 240 suspected operatives of Hamas and PIJ, including at least 15 allegedly implicated in the October 7 massacres, as well as several prominent terrorist commanders. One of those detained is Hussam Abu Safiya, the Hospital’s director and a Hamas colonel, according not only to Israel, but also referred to as such in both Palestinian news outlets as well as by Hamas’ own medical services. The IDF claimed it killed 19 operatives in the fighting but is unaware of any civilian casualties.

One IDF investigator told Israeli news outlet N12 that, based on interrogations, entire sections of the hospital were solely for Hamas’ operational use, and the hospital was “where they regroup, store their weapons, and manage the intelligence they gather.” A detainee confirmed this on camera in a recently released video.

One need not take every single IDF claim at face value to see that the reason that Gaza’s medical infrastructure has been so battered is that it is constantly and routinely being used by Hamas and other groups “to commit acts harmful to the enemy”. Yet one would never know this reading UN reports, which wilfully misrepresent legal and factual matters and contribute nothing in terms of understanding the war against Hamas in Gaza.

What’s worse, they incentivise Hamas to continue its illegal and callous behaviour, turning all of Gaza’s medical infrastructure into combat zones, thus making it vastly harder for Gaza’s civilians to get the medical care they need.

Oved Lobel is a Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC)