al-Ahli Arab Hospital

So on October 17th, 2023, an explosion occurred at the Al-Ah- ...

Khalil, uh, Arab Hospital in Gaza.

Now, the Palestinian authorities initially blamed it on an Israeli attack, and several major news organizations prominently reported the allegation before responsili- as- responsibility has been established.

And then Israel disputed the accusation, blame failed Pale- Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.

Joe Biden was coming to the Middle East to meet with Jordan's King Abdullah and with Egypt's, uh, with El-Sisi.

The summit had to be canceled because of, do you guys remember this? A Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that was fired from Gaza that hit Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.

Did you hear what I said? The terror rocket never made it out of Gaza, which happened all the time.

Who got blamed? Do you remember who got blamed? Israel.

The New York Times has, in particular, racked up a rather ignoble record in this area.

The Times was among the first in October twenty twenty-three to misreport that Israel had bombed the Al Ahli Arab Hospital, killing five hundred.

Israel did no such thing.

The rocket was misfired by the terrorist group Islamic Jihad, according to a US assessment, and it did not even hit the hospital.

Well, one thing that surprised them was just how quickly the international media, uh, American media, and many others were able to switch from feeling bad for Israel after that October 7th attack to immediately resuming the nin- the, you know, preexisting narrative which they had had for other Gaza wars of just blaming Israel for fighting back.

I would trace this to just 10 days after the October 7th massacre, when there's this fake news story about the bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.

Mm-hmm.

You have news headlines all around the world saying, "Israel just bombed a hospital, 500 dead." It turns out it wasn't Israel.

The congress itself was organized by Palestinian groups, leftist groups, but also anti-Zionist Jewish groups, and it was the idea to talk about what's happening in Gaza and how Germany is complicit.

And, um, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah specifically sh- uh, uh, wanted to speak about his personal experience working at Al Shifa Hospital and, uh, Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza in the first weeks of the genocide, and Yanis Varoufakis was invited to give a broader political context.

Ghassan Abu Sittah was entered into the Schengen Information System, meaning that Germany banned him from entering the whole Schengen area, which covers most of Europe, which also would have banned him from giving expert witness testimony at the ICC, and they also, uh, put a ban on political activity for several weeks on him.

We challenged both of these government actions successfully in court.