Israeli Rabbis Call on Netanyahu to Bomb Gaza Hospital

An Israeli journalist has shared a letter he says has been signed by dozens of rabbis which states there would be no religious prohibition for Israel's forces to strike a hospital that contained "the enemy."

The missive, posted on Monday on the Telegram channel of prominent media figure Amit Segal, is addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and mentions by name the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City which is the strip's largest medical complex.

Israel continues to bombard the Gaza Strip following the attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,400 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage. The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached more than 8,700, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, per AP.

Israel has sent its forces into Hamas-controlled Gaza following weeks of air and artillery strikes and has vowed to wipe out Hamas amid a growing civilian death toll and desperate humanitarian crisis as food, fuel, drinking water and medicine run short.

Israel has said that key Hamas operations are taking place within underground tunnels below Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, as well as Al-Quds, which has been explicitly ordered several times to evacuate. Israel has repeatedly said that Hamas is using human shields as cover for its activities.

But the World Health Organization Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that under international humanitarian law, "healthcare must always be protected," as he urged Israel to rescind its evacuation order against Al-Quds Hospital.

The letter posted on Segal's channel to 184,000 followers says that "the nation of Israel will stand up bravery to strike at its enemies," according to a translation of the Hebrew. It goes on to justify targeting sites even "when the enemy hides behind a human shield."

Regarding the Al-Shifa hospital, "there is no halachic...moral..or legal prohibition to bombard the enemy" if there has been "adequate warning in advance." Halacha is the collective body of Jewish religious laws.

"If in such an action innocent blood is spilled, the blame will fall only on the head of the murderers," the letter added, referring to the Hamas militants Israel is fighting against. The letter was also shared on the Palestinian Quds News Network and as of Wednesday had received more than 3.1 million views. Newsweek has reached out to the IDF and Segal for comment.

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor, told the outlet Democracy Now in an article published on Monday that in the 16 years he had worked on and off at Al-Shifa hospital, he had seen no evidence that it was a Hamas command center.

He said that if as Israel claims, it is a mixed military-civilian target, "the civilian precautions take priority over the military. So, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, you can't bomb hospitals, unless they have very clear military functions."