A/HRC/12/48 page 144 613. In its report of July 2009 (para. 173) the Israeli Government quotes part of an article from Newsweek magazine: One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated. Asked if there were any militants firing from the hospital or the Red Crescent buildings, hospital director general Dr. Khalid Judah chose his words carefully. ‘I am not able to say if anyone was using the PRCS buildings [the two Palestine Red Crescent Society buildings adjacent to the hospital], but I know for a fact that no one was using the hospital.’ In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. He shrugged that off, having a bigger beef with Hamas. ‘They failed to win the battle.’ Or as his fellow PPP official, Walid al Awad, put it: ‘It was a mistake to give Israel the excuse to come in.’375 While the Israeli Government does not comment further on the specific attack, it would appear to invoke these comments to justify the strikes on the hospital and surrounding area. 614. The Mission understands that the Israeli Government may consider relying on journalists’ reporting as likely to be treated as more impartial than reliance on its own intelligence information. The Mission is nonetheless struck by the lack of any suggestion in Israel’s report of July 2009 that there were members of armed groups present in the hospital at the time. 3. Factual findings 615. The Mission finds that on the morning of 15 January the hospital building and the administrative building were struck by a number of shells containing white phosphorous and by at least one high explosive shell. The fires these caused led to panic and chaos among the sick and wounded, necessitated two evacuations in extremely perilous conditions, caused huge financial losses as a result of the damage and put the lives of several hundred civilians including medical staff at very great risk. 616. The Mission also notes that, as a result of the conditions the attack created, the hospital was unable to provide the necessary care for an eight-year-old girl. Despite heroic attempts to save her, she died later in another hospital. The girl had been shot by an Israeli sniper. The Mission finds the Israeli armed forces responsible for her death. 617. On the issue of armed groups being present in the hospital buildings, the Mission does not agree that anything in the extract cited above from Newsweek magazine justifies the conclusion that the hospital premises were being used by armed groups. The fact that Dr. Judah spoke with certainty about matters within his knowledge cannot be presumed to mean that he believed other 375 “Hamas and its discontents”, 20 January 2009.