A “horror” bulldozer that “intentionally overturns Palestinian patients” in the courtyard of the Kamal Adwan hospital, located in the north of the Gaza Strip and heavily damaged after being targeted by the Israeli army since the beginning December ? This is what we can read on Instagram, TikTok or even X, in the caption of a video relayed several thousand times.
The images are violent: we see a bulldozer pushing a stand into a makeshift shelter, where shrouds are placed on the ground. Under the pressure, they move and bodies roll. The crowd watching the scene is forced to move backwards, until the construction equipment backs up, leaving the stand under the shelter. Men then threw stones at him. An injured man lying on a stretcher is also visible. The confusing video, lasting around thirty seconds, has been shared since this weekend on social networks.
FAKE OFF
The Kamal Adwan hospital, in the north of the Gaza Strip, was indeed targeted by the Israeli army. However, this video predates the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. She was posted on YouTube on August 26, 2013. It shows demonstrators repressed in Egypt, in Rabaa Al-Adawiya square, in Cairo.
Demonstrators, supporters of former Egyptian President Mohammed Al-Morsi, organized a sit-in on August 14, 2013. Thousands of people were present, underlines RFI. The mobilization was violently dispersed, causing several hundred deaths – 600 according to the authorities, more than a thousand according to the organizers of the sit-in, the Muslim Brotherhood, remember the BBC. The assessment given by the NGO Human Rights Watch oscillates between 817 and 1,000 deaths. In the YouTube video, after the bulldozer reverses, people are seen rushing towards shrouded bodies.
The inner courtyard of the hospital covered with earth and rubble
We found the trail of this video by doing a reverse image search. As the quality of images currently circulating on social networks is degraded, we had to improve their quality, which allowed us to find older occurrences. A keyword search then referred us to this video posted on August 26, 2013.
If this video went viral again this weekend, it is because the Kamal Adwan hospital was targeted by the Israeli army last week. In a video published by the British news agency Reuters, the ground of the inner courtyard of the hospital is covered with earth and rubble. An Al-Jazeera journalist advanced that a bulldozer covered tents and people in the courtyard, a claim that 20 minutes could not independently verify.
WHO Director-General deplores “effective destruction” of hospital
WHO Director-General lamented Sunday “the effective destruction” of the hospital, which makes it “non-functional”. “We learned that many patients had to evacuate on their own, risking their health and safety, as ambulances were unable to reach the establishment,” detailed Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“At least eight patients” died following the military operation, several of them due to lack of “appropriate medical care,” added the director general, who called for an immediate “ceasefire.”
Israeli representation to the United Nations in Geneva replied to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, claiming that a humanitarian corridor had been set up and that “most of the hospital had been evacuated” before the “entry” of Israeli forces. Israeli diplomats also claimed that Hamas “had established itself” inside the hospital and that “weapons and intelligence documents” had been found “hidden” there, including “in the maternity ward in incubators”.
Israel also released photos showing the arrest of men in the hospital area. The diplomats assure that “Israel arrested 90 terrorists in the surrounding area, some of whom had taken part” in the October 7 attacks.
Only eight hospitals are still partially functioning in the Gaza Strip, out of the 36 operational before the start of the conflict, has indicated the Director-General of the WHO on Saturday.