Misery Index

Armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roamed the halls.  Asked their function, they said it was to provide security.  But there was international bloodletting under way.

In the fourth-flour orthopedic section, a woman in her late 20s asked a militant to let her see Saleh Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband.  She was turned away and left the hospital.  Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Hajoj was carried out by young men pretending to transfer him to another ward.  As he lay on the stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head.

Mr. Hajoj, like five others killed at the hospital this way in 24 hours, was accused of collaboration with Israel.  He had been in the central prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges; when Israel destroyed the prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital.  But their trials were short-circuited.

More details come from the Toronto Star who published the entire story from the NYT

At Shifa Hospital yesterday, armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roved the halls.  Asked their funciton, they said they were providing security.  But there was internal bloodletting underway.

In the fourth floor orthopedic section, a woman in her late twenties asked a militant to let her see Saleh Hajoj, her 32-year-old husban.   She was turned away and left the hospital.  Fifteen minutes later, Hajoj was carried out of his room by young men pretending to transfer him to another hospital section.  As he lay on the stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head.  A bit of brain emerged on the other side of his skull.

Hajoj, like five others who were killed at the hospital in this way in the previous 24 hours, was accused of collaboration with Israel.  He had been in the central prison awaiting trail by Hamas judges, and when Israel destroyed the prison Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital.  But their trails were short-circuited.

A crowd at the hospital showed no pity after the shooting, which was widely observed.  A man in his thirties mocked a woman who expressed horror at the scene.

“This horrified you?” he shouted.  “A collaborator that caused the death of many innocent and resistance fighters?”

Another man told her, “It was his brother who killed him to wipe away the shame from his family.”

Sobhia Jomaa, a layer with the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, said 115 collaborators were in the central prison.  None had been executed by Hamas since it took office and their cases were monitored closely, she said.  “The prison provided the sole protection to all of them,” she said.  “But once it was bombed, many wanted to take revenge.”

Dr. Hussein Ashour, director of Shifa Hospital, said keeping his patients alive from their wounds was hard enough for him.  He said there were some 1,500 wounded distributed among Gaza’s nine hospitals plagued with equipment shortages.

 

Additional details regarding more incidents around the hospital come from The Jewish Press

Tuesday’s clashes began when members of the PA General Intelligence Force fired at gunmen belonging to Hamas’s “Executive Force” at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.  Eyewitnesses said members of the “Executive Force” stationed at the hospital tired to prevent an ambulance from entering the compound under the pretext that gunmen were hiding inside the vehicle.

Sources close to the General Intelligence Force claimed the ambulance was carrying an officer who broke his leg when he fell off a ladder.

“The Hamas guards at the hospital kidnapped the officer and his companions and held them as hostages inside the hospital,” they said.  “Then the Hamas militiamen phoned the General Intelligence headquarters and asked us to send a force to take the kidnapped men.”

According to the sources, when General Intelligence officers arrived at the hospital, the Hamas guards opened fire, injuring three of them.  They also claimed that a fourth officer, Muhammed al-Harazin, was kidnapped by the Hamas gunmen.  Harazin’s body was later discovered near the hospital together with the bullet-ridden body of another General Intelligence officer, Muhammed Kassab.

SOURCES:

• “Hamas takes time out from killing Jews to murder their own”, American Thinker, 31DEC08