Israel’s grotesque hypocrisy regarding attacks on hospitals

When an Iranian missile hits an Israeli hospital, with no casualties, it’s a war crime; when Israel wages a genocidal “war”, over and over again, on Gaza’s hospitals, it apparently isn’t.

Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, attacked by the Israeli military in November 2023, and, again in March 2024, when it was almost completely destroyed. (Photo: Omar al-Qattaa).

When an Israeli hospital was struck by a missile yesterday — whether deliberately or not is difficult to ascertain — it nevertheless prompted a wave of hysteria and unparalleled hypocrisy in Israel, as I discuss in my new article, Israel Cries “War Crimes” as a Hospital is Hit by Iran, While Sickeningly Ignoring its Genocidal 20-Month “War” on Gaza’s Hospitals.

I hope you can find the time to read it.

Even though no one was killed in the attack, Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about how Iran’s aim was "to destroy every one of us", and defense minister Israel Katz said that Ayatollah Khameini "can no longer be allowed to exist", and called the hospital attack "war crimes."

Attacking a hospital is indeed a war crime, but nowhere in Israel’s response to the attack was there even the slightest scintilla of recognition that, if the attack on the Soroka Hospital was a war crime, Israel’s war crimes in relation to hospitals in Gaza are of a magnitude that is so much greater that it is almost incalculable.

Last October, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."

Over the last 20 months, Israel has attacked all 36 hospitals in Gaza, often repeatedly, destroying many, and decommissioning all but one, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which is now the last surviving hospital for 2 million people, although it too is on the verge of collapse.

As Israeli officials were whining, the WHO warned that, even as Nasser Hospital is overwhelmed with casualties from the ongoing aid massacres, fuel will run out within the next few days, with premature babies on incubators particularly vulnerable, not only because of the need for fuel for their incubators, but also because the hospital is running out of milk for them because of Israel’s ongoing siege.

As I also note, Israel has also attacked hospitals and healthcare facilities in Lebanon, and, in the last week, has also attacked two hospitals in Iran.

My interview about Guantánamo, Trump’s “war on migrants” and the CECOT prison

If you have the time, please listen to my half-hour interview with Chris Cook for his weekly Gorilla Radio show in western Canada. I’m honoured that Chris has been interviewing me for many years (more than either of us care to remember, I suspect), and you can listen to the show below.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dan Kovalik, Andy Worthington June 18, 2025

I’m in the second half of the show (in the first, Chris talked to Dan Kovalik about Israel’s war on Iran), and we spoke about Guantánamo, Donald Trump’s “war on migrants”, his use of the mega-Guantánamo CECOT prison in El Salvador to hold Venezuelan migrants wrongly and casually identified as dangerous gang members, and the efforts of the US courts to secure due process for them.

Chris was following up on my recent article, The Alarming Kafkaesque Basis of Trump’s “War on Migrants”, and I plan to write more about Trump’s “war on migrants” in the coming weeks.

Wishing you a happy summer solstice

In the meantime, I wish you all a happy summer solstice, and leave you with a fundraising appeal, as this week marks my latest quarterly effort to secure donations to enable me to continue being a truly independent, truth-telling, human rights journalist and activist, now in the 20th year of my work.

You can find information about supporting me here — or, in a nutshell, you can take out a paid subscription here on Substack (at $8 a month), or you can make a one-off donation via Paypal or via Stripe, where I’ve just established a new donation page.

And as it’s the summer solstice, you may also find my book Stonehenge: Celebration & Subversion to be of interest. First published 21 years ago, and still in print, it’s a counter-cultural history of those drawn to what is without a doubt one of the most compelling of ancient monuments.

My book Stonehenge: Celebration & Subversion, first published in 2004, and still in print.

41 years ago, I was there for what turned out to be the last ever Stonehenge Free Festival, a massive autonomous gathering at which, as was customary, the cosmic rock maestros Hawkwind headlined.

The next year, shamefully, the advance party heading to Stonehenge to set up what would have been the 13th festival was set upon with unprecedented brutality by a paramlilitarized police force, shutting off access to the stones at the solstice for the next 15 years, as explained in my 2005 book The Battle of the Beanfield, which is also still in print.