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Hamas Has a History of Using Ambulances for War

(Spectator-UK) Jonathan Sacerdoti - Before the facts had even settled, Western media reported that Israel was guilty of deliberately targeting ambulances and murdering humanitarian workers because, in the court of international opinion, Israel's guilt is the default setting. Israeli forces near Rafah, acting on intelligence that Hamas operatives were exploiting ambulances for military purposes in an area recently active with Hamas convoys, opened fire on a suspicious convoy. Six of those killed were Hamas operatives. For decades, Palestinian terrorist groups have systematically turned ambulances, hospitals, schools and mosques into instruments of war. This is an entrenched tactic: a strategic manipulation of international law designed to endanger civilians and maximize propaganda victories. Captured Hamas fighters have confessed to using ambulances for ferrying weapons and personnel. The accusation that Israel strikes ambulances for sport is not just false, it is a profound inversion of moral reality. It is not the IDF that violates the sanctity of humanitarian symbols; it is Hamas, systematically destroying that trust, turning every ambulance into a potential weapon and every rescue worker into an unwitting shield. When ambulances become troop carriers, their immunity is forfeited by those who abuse it. No nation, under existential threat from enemies who have turned humanitarian infrastructure into a battlefield, could operate under a policy of blind trust. Israel's soldiers must act in a reality where every ambulance could hide explosives. Ignoring this reality is not just naive - it is deeply immoral. The media's unwillingness to grapple with this reality - its eagerness to frame Israel as a pariah state while ignoring the profound legal and moral violations of its adversaries - is not an innocent error. It contributes directly to the perverse incentive structure whereby Palestinian armed groups are rewarded - politically and diplomatically - for placing civilians and humanitarian workers in the line of fire.
2025-04-08 00:00:00
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