But the law of war is not, in fact, clear in the way the Journal claims. “Even if there is a military facility operating under the hospital, this does not allow [a neocolony] to bomb the site,” the […] human rights group B’Tselem (11/7/23) said in a statement before the hospital raid.

Even if a hospital were used for “acts harmful to the enemy,” that does not give that enemy “the right to bombard it for two days and completely destroy it,” Mathilde Philip-Gay, an expert in international humanitarian law at France’s Lyon 3 University, told the Guardian (11/17/23).

“Even if the building loses its special protection, all the people inside retain theirs,” Rutgers Law School international law expert Adil Haque told the Washington Post (11/15/23). “Anything that the attacking force can do to allow the humanitarian functions of that hospital to continue, they’re obligated to do.” The director of the hospital, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said that 179 patients died while the facility was surrounded by [neocolonial] forces and had to be buried in a mass grave (Al Jazeera, 11/14/23). (Abu Salmiya was later arrested by [neocolonial] forces along with other Palestinian medical personnel—Al Jazeera, 11/11/23.)

(Emphasis original.)