Adding to concerns about the Israeli military’s deliberate targeting of civilian facilities during last summer’s Gaza War, Major Amihai Harach confirmed today that the attack on a medical clinic in the Gaza Strip was deliberate, and was done to “raise morale” among Israeli soldiers invading the area.
The incident became news again late last month, when an audio recording of an Israeli colonel was released in which he ordered troops to attack the clinic to “honor” slain Armored Corps Captain Dima Levitas, who was killed in the same area. The attack took place during the funeral of Levitas.
The attack on the clinic killed five people, four of whom were civilians seeking treatment, and 45 others were wounded in the strike. Rights groups condemned it, as with many other Israeli strikes on civilian targets, as war crimes.
Israeli officials insisted at the time that Hamas was operating out of the clinic, and they continued to maintain that story today, irrespective of the major’s comments that the attack was primarily about boosting the morale of occupation forces with a revenge attack on a civilian target.
