An eyewitness account by Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who has worked off and on at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City over the last 16 years, provided his account Oct. 30 to “Democracy Now,” discounting the claim of a Hamas military headquarters at the hospital:
“I will ask President Netanyahu to put on the table the proof and the evidence that there is a control and command center for the Palestinian resistance in Shifa Hospital. We have heard these claims since 2009. We have twice been threatened to [have to] leave Shifa Hospital, in 2009 and 2014, because the Israelis were going to bomb it because it was a command center. Now, I have been working in Shifa for 16 years, 16 years on and off, in very hectic periods, very hectic periods. I’ve been able to walk freely around. I take lots of pictures. I video, film. I’ve been sleeping in the hospital during bombardment. I’ve been all over. I’ve never been restricted, controlled. Nobody has ever controlled my picture and documentation material. So, well, if there is a command center, show us. You have pictures and X-ray films of all Gaza, all the tunnels, everything. So, why is it that [in] these 16 years of threats that Shifa is a command center [there] has not been given any evidence at all that it de facto is?”
