Israel’s Al Shifa Shame
In what was once a sanctuary of healing
A refuge for the dispossessed
A light of hope in the darkness of war
The curtains of military siege are drawn back
To reveal a hellscape of torture and executions
Where the sanctity of medicine had no currency
Where dialysis machines seen as combatants
Were destroyed, all 100, to prevent life
The Radiation suite demolished in a blind rage
Wards after wards rendered useless
Illogical and militarily insignificant, just evil
As was intended, without shame, undisguised
The greatest cruelty an absence of humanity
Three hundred civilians executed by the IDF
The executed lay with hands bound in the rubble
Or under the tracks of tanks
Witnesses explode with their horrors
Memories held for weeks under siege
Parents ordered to abandon their ill children
Healers and patients bound, shot and buried
Evidence of some being bound and buried alive
Thirteen children summarily executed
Agonising deaths of patients deserted
Starved to death over two weeks of torture
The trail of bodies left in the IDF wake
Reveal war crimes that will haunt a nation
For a millennium
Coating that nation in a veil of shame
To wear for generations
Israel’s Al Shifa Shame!
Alison Pyle