Smoke bombs, Israeli military bulldozers target Gaza’s al-Amal Hospital

Witnesses Describe Fear and Deprivation at Besieged Hospital in Gaza

A young Palestinian man awaiting medical attention at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City this month. Israel’s assault on the complex has been one of the longest hospital raids of the war.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Israeli forces have launched “violent” ground and air attacks on Khan Younis and bombed homes in Rafah and Deir el-Balah, killing at least 14 Palestinians, according to media reports.

Palestinian Red Crescent says smoke bombs launched at the hospital to force staff, wounded and displaced individuals to evacuate.

Residents nearby described a relentless daily soundtrack of gunshots, airstrikes and explosions. A surgeon spoke of doctors and patients corralled in the emergency ward while Israeli forces took control of the complex outside. A Palestinian teenager who spent four days sheltering in the hospital described the bodies she saw piled up outside the entrance.

“They had put the bodies on the side and thrown blankets over them,” said Alaa Abu Al-Kaaf, 18, who said she and her family were at Al-Shifa for days before leaving on Thursday. It was not immediately clear when or how the bodies were brought there.

Interviews with other witnesses in the hospital, residents in or near the facility and the Gazan authorities in recent days, as well as with others who have left the complex over the past week, described a situation of fear and deprivation, interrogations and detentions of Palestinian men by Israeli forces, and a persistent lack of food and water.

The assault on Al-Shifa, one of Israel’s longest hospital raids of the war in Gaza, began on Monday with tanks, bulldozers and airstrikes. The military said it was aimed at senior officials of Hamas, the armed group that led an attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel began a war on Gaza in response to that assault, with intense aerial bombardments and a ground offensive.

A week after the raid on Al-Shifa began, communications with those living in and around the sprawling hospital complex have been almost entirely cut off. Many of the 30,000 Palestinians whom the Gaza Health Ministry said had been sheltering at Al-Shifa were displaced once again by the raid. The Gazan authorities said that at least 13 patients had died as a result of the raid because they were deprived of medicine and treatment, or when their ventilators stopped working after the Israelis cut the electricity. Those claims could not be verified. The Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday that patients still in Al-Shifa were in critical condition, with maggots beginning to infect wounds. The director general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, posted a report on social media on Friday from a doctor in Al-Shifa, as relayed by a colleague from the United Nations. Two patients on life support died because of a lack of electricity, and there were no medicines or basic medical supplies, he wrote. Many patients in critical condition were lying on the floor. In one building, 50 medical workers and more than 140 patients have been kept since the second day of the raid, with extremely limited food, water and one nonfunctional toilet, Dr. Tedros wrote.

“Health workers are worried about their own and their patients’ safety,” Dr. Tedros wrote. “These conditions are utterly inhumane. We call for an immediate end to the siege and appeal for safe access to ensure patients get the care they need.”

Dr. Tayseer al-Tanna, 54, a vascular surgeon, said he finally fled the Al-Shifa complex on Thursday after days of hearing gunfire outside the ward where he was positioned. Dr. Al-Tanna said Israeli forces had gathered doctors and patients in the complex’s emergency room while they swept the grounds outside.

“The Israeli military didn’t treat us violently,” Dr. Al-Tanna said. “But we had almost no food and water” during the incursion, he added.

He declined to comment on whether Palestinian fighters had fortified themselves in the medical complex.

The media office for the territory’s government, which is run by Hamas, said in a statement on Saturday that the Israeli military was threatening the medical staff and people sheltering inside to either leave the hospital — and risk being interrogated, tortured or executed — or the military would bomb and destroy the buildings over their heads. The media office said it was in touch with people inside the complex.

The Israeli military did not address specific questions about whether it had threatened people inside the medical complex. But on Saturday it said it was operating in the area of the hospital “while avoiding harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and medical equipment.”

The military said it had killed more than 170 fighters in the area of the hospital and detained and questioned more than 800 people.

The New York Times could not verify either the Hamas or Israeli military accounts.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza as command centers and of concealing weapons in underground tunnels beneath them, a claim that the armed Palestinian group and hospital administrators have previously denied.

In a statement on Sunday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said that Israeli forces were “besieging” two more hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis, Al-Amal and Nasser.

The Israeli military was targeting Al-Amal with smoke bombs, and military vehicles were barricading the entrances of the compound, the Red Crescent said.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said an Israeli assault on Nasser Hospital had been “violent and bloody” and accused the military of trying to incapacitate all the hospitals in Gaza.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Sunday that it had started an operation in the Al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Younis overnight. An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment further when asked whether Israeli troops were currently encircling Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals.

In statements regarding the Al-Shifa raid, Hamas confirmed that its fighters were engaged in clashes with Israeli forces near the hospital. In one statement on Saturday, Hamas said members of its Qassam Brigades had fired mortar shells at Israeli forces near Al-Shifa.

Ms. Al-Kaaf and other Palestinians who have left the complex over the past week also described scenes in which groups of men were detained, stripped and questioned by Israeli soldiers. Women and children were separated from the men, Ms. Al-Kaaf said, and others — including members of the hospital’s medical staff, doctors and nurses — were kept in a large pit, sitting on the ground. Some were blindfolded and handcuffed.

The Israeli military said “individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activity” were being detained and questioned in accordance with international law and released if “found not to be taking part in terrorist activities.” It added: “It is often necessary for terror suspects to hand over their clothes such that their clothes can be searched and to ensure that they are not concealing explosive vests or other weaponry.”

For those in the al-Rimal neighborhood, which surrounds Al-Shifa, the siege on the hospital has trapped residents in their homes. Several said snipers had been shooting into the surrounding streets; residents were fearful they could be dragged from their homes by Israeli forces, stripped and interrogated, as they said dozens had been over the past week.

“The situation is really bad,” said Mohammed Haddad, 25, who lives about a half-mile from the hospital. “For more than five days, we haven’t been able to go out and move around. We haven’t been able to get water, get food. And it’s Ramadan,” he said, referring to the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Airstrikes and random cannon fire have hit multiple homes in the immediate neighborhood, demolishing them, Mr. Haddad said.

“There are snipers, shelling, surveillance drones and armed drones,” he added, the buzzing of a drone audible as he spoke on the phone.

Israeli forces appeared to be destroying the entire area, he said, “not just the hospital.”

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.

Raja Abdulrahim is a Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem covering the Levant. More about Raja Abdulrahim

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Russian MiG-31 fighter intercepts US bombers over Barents Sea

©Lev Fedoseyev/TASS

A Russian MiG-31 fighter jet was scrambled to intercept a pair of US strategic bombers approaching Russia’s state border over the Barents Sea, the Defense Ministry of Russia reported.

"On March 24, 2024, Russian airspace control capabilities spotted an aerial target over the Barents Sea approaching the state border of the Russian Federation. A MiG-31 fighter jet from air defense quick reaction alert forces was scrambled to identify the aerial target and prevent it from violating Russia’s state border," the ministry said. "The fighter’s crew identified the aerial targets as a pair of B-1B strategic bombers of the US Air Force, it said.

"As the Russian fighter approached it, the US bombers U-turn from the state border of the Russian Federation," it said, adding that the Russian aircraft safely returned to its home airbase, preventing the violation of Russia’s state border.

The Russian fighter jet strictly followed the international rules of using the airspace over neutral waters, complying with safety measures, the ministry added.

Russian Forces Carry Out Strike Against Ukrainian Energy Facilities

Russian Ministry of Defense reported on the progress of special military operation.

The Russian aerospace forces carried out high-precision missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian power facilities over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

"Tonight, the Russian Aerospace Forces launched a group strike with long-range airborne precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles against electric power facilities, gas production facilities, and assembly and testing sites for unmanned boats," the ministry said.

All of the targets were hit, the ministry added.

"As a result of the strike, the work of industrial enterprises for the production and repair of weapons, military equipment and ammunition was disorganized, and foreign military equipment and means of destruction transferred to Ukraine by NATO countries were destroyed," the ministry said.

At the same time, Russian air defense systems destroyed 172 Ukrainian drones, 11 Storm Shadow cruise missiles and three Neptun anti-ship missiles, as well as 22 multiple launch rocket system shells and other targets, the military said.

Russian Airstrikes on Kharkov Eradicate Roughly 30 Ukrainian Servicemen

Around 30 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in an attack by Russian forces on targets in the city of Kharkov, including the location of the Lyut assault brigade, Nikolaev underground network coordinator Sergei Lebedev told Sputnik.

"On March 23, there was a series of attacks on military facilities in Kharkov, which hit the dormitories of the Kharkov National University of Internal Affairs, known in Kharkov as the Interior Ministry's school Bandurki," Lebedev said.

Neo-nazis from various regiments resided in the dormitory and the university itself, Lebedev said, adding that it the presence of foreign servicepeople was being verified. On Saturday night, a sanatorium in the Herzen settlement in Kharkov, where Ukrainian soldiers were stationed, was also hit, Lebedev added.

"Kharkov residents say that there was a military camp in the sanatorium. Whether it was the Ukrainian armed forces or the national battalions is still unclear. What is known is that the military who were in the sanatorium had a lot of weapons and equipment. Our agents say that the number of deaths is approximately 30," Lebedev added.

Putin - 1999 NATO Bombing of Serbia is ‘Great Tragedy’ War Launched by West

©Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Go to the mediabank

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia a great tragedy, adding that the West, in fact, launched a war in Europe at that time.

In 1999, an armed confrontation between Albanian separatists from the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serbian army and police led to the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO forces, which started on March 24 and lasted for over two months. The Serbian authorities say that about 2,500 people, including 89 children, were killed and about 12,500 people were injured in the bombings. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the use of depleted uranium weapons caused an increase in the number of cancer patients in the country.

"A great tragedy. What the West has done is unacceptable. Without any resolution of the UN Security Council they started direct military actions, in fact, a war in the center of Europe," Putin said in an interview for a documentary that was broadcast by Russia's TV channel on Sunday, on the 25th anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing.

25 Years Since NATO Bombing of Sovereign Yugoslavia

The world learned that the US and NATO see the globe as their own playground where they do as they please a quarter of a century ago. On March 24, 1999, Western nations started bombing the city of Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, under the far-fetched pretext of "protecting" Kosovars.

Despite the NATO bloc not having any mandate from the United Nations, Western countries saw no problem in carrying out the bombing.

Czech leader Vaclav Havel – who recently dragged his nation into NATO despite negative public opinion – coined the term of “humanitarian intervention” and penned an article where he justified Western aggression against the sovereign European state.

“The air attacks, the bombs, are not caused by a material interest. Their character is exclusively humanitarian: What is at stake here are the principles, human rights which have priority above state sovereignty," Havel wrote.

In reality, the bombing of Yugoslavia caused a humanitarian catastrophe with over one thousand killed and national infrastructure being damaged. The list of destroyed "military objects" included hospitals, schools and kindergartens. Yugoslavia collapsed as a nation into several states and the Balkans became a foothold for NATO forces.

Explore Sputnik’s infographic to learn about this aggression:

Suspects behind Moscow terrorist attack - What we know so far

©Telegram/Margarita Simonyan

Russia’s law enforcement and security services have detained a total of 11 suspects following Friday’s terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the outskirts of Moscow. The detainees include the four alleged perpetrators of the massacre that has claimed the lives of more than 130 and left over 150 injured, according to Russian domestic security service the FSB.

Details about the suspects’ identities and the circumstances of the attack are still emerging. According to the FSB, the assault was carefully planned and designed to maximize casualties. An investigation into the incident is underway. Here is what is known so far:

Detention

The four primary suspects were detained in the early hours of Saturday in Russia’s Bryansk Region, bordering Ukraine, an FSB statement said. The alleged perpetrators were traveling in a white Renault Symbol/Clio car they used to flee the scene, according to the 78.ru news media outlet.

Following a brief chase by Russian law enforcement officials, the suspects abandoned the car. One of them was detained at that scene while three others sought to hide in woods, prompting a large-scale manhunt, media are reporting.

Later, several videos showing the detention and interrogation of the alleged perpetrators surfaced online. Two of the videos were published by RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, with another one released by journalist Aleksandr Kots. At least one suspect was injured during a standoff with law enforcement officers and was hospitalized, the Mash Telegram channel reported.

Russian officials have not commented on the information about the alleged hospitalization of one of the suspects. On Saturday, the FSB released a statement in which it said that a total of 11 people had been detained in connection with the incident, including four alleged attackers.

“The criminals intended to cross the Russia-Ukraine border and had relevant contacts on the Ukrainian side,” it added, referring to the four primary suspects. The other seven detentions took place in Moscow and the Moscow region, according to Russian media.

Identity of the suspects

Russian law enforcement officials have not released any data on the names or nationalities of the eleven being held. The Russian Interior Ministry only confirmed that none of the primary suspects had Russian citizenship.

“The Interior Ministry’s migration department, together with our FSB colleagues, is carefully studying the grounds for stay and the length of stay on Russian territory for each of those detained,” ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said.

Footage of the questioning of the suspected perpetrators shows one of them speaking in broken Russian and another talking to officers through an interpreter. One of the suspects claimed he had been to Türkiye and had only come to Russia in early March. No information has been made public about the identities of their seven alleged accomplices.

Weapons and equipment

Footage taken at the scene and released by the Russian Investigative Committee shows that the attackers were armed with what appeared to be assault rifles and were equipped with a large number of ammunition rounds. At least one such weapon resembling an AK assault rifle can be seen in the clip, along with almost a dozen dispenser magazines still loaded with ammunition rounds.

Russia’s Lenta news outlet also reported that a Saiga hunting rifle had also been found at that scene. A Makarov handgun and one more dispenser magazine were also discovered in the suspects’ car during their detention in the Bryansk region, according to Russian media.

One of the suspects claimed during questioning that a weapons cache had been arranged for them by curators they did not know personally and only contacted via Telegram. A vehicle they’d used in the attack was also allegedly bought from one of the suspects’ relatives shortly before the terrorist act.

Motives

One of the suspects filmed during his interrogation by law enforcement officers claimed that he had committed the crime “for money.” The man stated he had been promised 500,000 rubles ($5,418) and had half of this transferred to his debit card before the attack.

The alleged perpetrator also said he had been “listening to sermons… by a preacher” on Telegram for some time before being approached by the supposed masterminds of Friday’s attack “around a month ago.” When further pressed about what he did in Crocus City Hall on Friday, the man said that he “shot down … people,” adding that he was just tasked with killing people and it “did not matter,” whom he would kill.

None of the suspects explicitly pledged allegiance to any extremist group during the questioning that was made public.

Possible masterminds

The Russian investigative authorities did not name any suspected organizers behind the attack. Neither have they signaled any links between the primary suspects and any extremist groups or outside forces, except for some Ukrainian “contacts” that were supposedly ready to aid them with crossing into Ukraine, according to the FSB.

Some Western media, including Reuters and CNN, reported that Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorist group also allegedly published a photo of the four suspects posing against the backdrop of an IS flag. The photo, which has since been shared by some media, shows four men wearing baseball caps with their faces covered. Moscow has not commented on the IS claims.

In this way, it can be said that the perpetrators conspired with some western media, because the western media knows the perpetrators, while there has been no official statement from the Russian authorities who made the arrests.

First interrogation of Moscow terrorist attack suspect

RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has posted a video clip of the interrogation of one of the suspected terrorists behind Friday’s shooting spree at Crocus City concert hall near Moscow. Earlier on Saturday, Russia’s FSB security service confirmed that eleven suspects, including four of the alleged perpetrators, had been detained in Bryansk Region, not far from the Ukrainian border.

The footage shows a bearded man lying on the ground and describing in broken Russian how he’d been paid to commit the terrorist attack.

The man says that before committing Friday’s atrocity, he had been to Türkiye. When asked what he did at the Crocus City concert venue on Friday evening, he replied: “I shot down... people.” The suspect added that he had committed the crime “for money,” detailing that he had been promised 500,000 rubles ($5,418).

The alleged perpetrator claimed that half the sum had already been transferred to his debit card.

The man also said that the curators, whom he supposedly does not know personally, had contacted him via Telegram messaging app, and arranged an arms cache for the assailants.

According to the suspect, he had been “listening to sermons… by a preacher” on Telegram for some time before being approached by the supposed masterminds of Friday’s attack “around a month ago.”

Shortly after publishing the first video clip, Simonyan posted more footage, in this instance depicting another suspected terrorist speaking through an interpreter.

The man describes how an acquaintance who he'd befriended on Telegram “ten to twelve days ago” had purchased a car, presumably with a view to using it as a taxi.

The terrorist attack, which, according to estimates, has left 133 dead and over 120 injured, occurred on Friday evening at Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, on the western outskirts of the Russian capital. The concert venue, with an estimated capacity of 7,500, was nearly full when the terrorists burst into the building.

After gunning down dozens of fleeing patrons, the assailants then set fire to rows of chairs inside the hall. The blaze quickly engulfed much of the building, including its roof.

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Dmitry Trenin - The West has lost its fear of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, it’s time to give them a reminder

Washington is waging a proxy war in a bid to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Moscow and a tougher response to this is needed

Nuclear weapon of Russia, soldiers of russian military forces standing on background of strategic missile system "Yars"
©Getty Images / Getty Images

By Dmitry Trenin, a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).

Strategic stability is usually understood as the absence of incentives for a nuclear-armed power to launch a massive first strike. Typically, it’s viewed primarily in military-technical terms. The reasons why an attack may be contemplated are usually not taken into account.

This idea emerged in the middle of the last century, when the USSR had achieved military-strategic parity with the US and the Cold War between them had entered a “mature” phase of limited confrontation and some predictability. The solution to the problem of strategic stability was then seen in the constant maintenance of contacts between the political leadership of the two superpowers. Which led to arms control and transparency in arranging their respective arsenals.

However, the first quarter of the 21st century is ending in conditions very different from the relative international political stability of the 1970s. The US-centric world order established after the end of the Cold War is being seriously challenged and its foundations are visibly shaken. The global hegemony of Washington and the position of the collective West as a whole is weakening, while the economic, military, scientific and technological might and political importance of non-Western countries –first and foremost China, but also India– are growing. This is leading to a deterioration in relations between the US and other power centers.

The two largest nuclear powers, Russia and the US, are in a state of semi-direct armed conflict. This confrontation is officially regarded in Russia as an existential threat. This situation has become possible as a result of the failure of strategic deterrence (in its geopolitical dimension) in an area where Russia’s vital interests are present. It should be noted that the main cause of the conflict is Washington’s conscious disregard –for three decades now– of Moscow’s clearly and explicitly expressed security interests.

Moreover, in the Ukrainian conflict, the US military and political leadership has not only articulated, but has publicly expressed, the mission of using its proxy to inflict a strategic military defeat on Russia, despite its nuclear status.

This is a complex undertaking in which the collective economic, political, military, military-technical, intelligence and informational capacity of the West is integrated with the actions of the Ukrainian armed forces in direct combat against the Russian army. In other words, the US is trying to defeat Russia not only without using nuclear weapons, but even without formally engaging in hostilities.

In this context, the declaration by the five nuclear powers on January 3, 2022, that “nuclear war should not be waged” and that “there can be no winners,” seems like a relic of the past. A proxy war between the nuclear powers is already underway; moreover, in the course of this conflict, more and more restrictions are being removed, both in terms of the weapon systems used and the participation of Western troops, as well as the geographical limits of the theater of war. It is possible to pretend that a certain ‘strategic stability’ is being maintained, but only if, like the US, a player sets the task of inflicting a strategic defeat on the enemy at the hands of its client state and expects that the enemy will not dare to use nuclear weapons.

Thus, the concept of strategic stability in its original form – the creation and maintenance of military-technical conditions to prevent a sudden massive nuclear strike – only partially retains its meaning under current conditions.

Strengthening nuclear deterrence could be the solution to the real problem of restoring strategic stability, which has been seriously disrupted by the ongoing and escalating conflict. To begin with, it is worth rethinking the concept of deterrence and, in the process, changing its name.

For example, instead of a passive, we should talk about an active form. The adversary should not remain in a state of comfort, believing that the war he is waging with the help of another country will not affect him in any way. In other words, it is necessary to put fear back into the minds and hearts of the enemy’s leaders. The beneficial sort of fear, it’s worth stressing.

It must also be recognized that the limits of purely verbal intervention have been exhausted at this stage of the Ukrainian conflict. Channels of communication all the way to the top must remain open around the clock, but the most important messages at this stage must be sent through concrete steps: doctrinal changes; military exercises to test them; underwater and aerial patrols along the coasts of the likely enemy; warnings about preparations for nuclear tests and the tests themselves; the imposition of no-fly zones over part of the Black Sea, and so on. The point of these actions is not only to demonstrate determination and readiness to use available capabilities to protect Russia’s vital interests, but –most importantly– to bring the enemy to a halt and encourage it to engage in serious dialogue.

The escalation ladder does not end here. Military-technical steps can be followed by real acts, warnings of which have already been given: for example, attacks on air bases and supply centers on the territory of NATO countries, and so on. There is no need to go further. We simply need to understand, and help the enemy to understand, that strategic stability in the real, not narrow, technical sense of the word is not compatible with armed conflict between nuclear powers, even if (for the time being) it is being waged indirectly.

It is unlikely that the enemy will accept this state of affairs easily and immediately. At the very least, they will need to realize that this is our position and draw the appropriate conclusions.

It is time for us to start revising the conceptual apparatus we use in matters of security strategy. We talk about international security, strategic stability, deterrence, arms control, nuclear non-proliferation and so on. These concepts emerged in the course of the development of Western – mainly American – political thought and found immediate practical application in US foreign policy. They are based on existing realities but adapted to American foreign policy objectives. We have tried to adapt them to our needs, but with mixed success.

It is time to move on and develop our own concepts that reflect Russia’s position in the world as well as its needs.