🇮🇱 Bunker Debunker: Did Israel build subterranean fortress under Gaza’s biggest hospital?

Situated in Gaza City, the Dar Al-Shifa Hospital is the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, and has a 700 bed capacity. The IDF has targeted the complex repeatedly over the past week-and-a-half, alleging Hamas's use of facilities located underneath as a fortified command center. Is there any truth to this story?

👉 Sputnik did some digging

🇩🇪🏭 Germany's energy woes spark 'deindustrialization on a considerable scale'

Consultancy firm Deloitte reports that two out of three German companies have partially relocated their operations abroad due to ongoing energy issues in Germany.

Previous reports indicated that nearly half of the country’s small-to-midsized companies were considering moving abroad or ceasing operations. According to Deloitte, 67 percent of German companies have moved some operations abroad, and every third industrial company plans to relocate high-quality areas such as production and preassembly.

Investments in infrastructure, digitalization, and cost-effective energy pricing are essential for securing business locations. The situation is particularly acute in Germany’s mechanical engineering, industrial goods, and automotive sectors, where 69 percent of companies report moderate to large-scale relocation.

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🇵🇸🇮🇱 Gaza condemned to disease and famine by the Israeli siege and bombing

Israel's latest assault on the besieged Gaza Strip has created the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle East in decades. Palestinian scientist and human rights activist Mazin Qumsiyeh said the dead were going unburied while the living starve.

Gaza's 2.3 million people are dying of curable diseases and malnutrition thanks to Israel's war on the enclave, a Palestinian scientist says.

Israel placed Gaza under a total siege in response to the October 7 incursion by Hamas and other militants, which left 300 Israeli soldiers and police and 1,100 civilians dead. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the shutting off of electricity and water supplies and the closure of checkpoints, denying inhabitants fuel, medicine and even food.

The Israeli Defense Forces have targeted hospitals, claiming Hamas has subterranean bases beneath them.

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🇺🇸🇸🇾 The US is ramping up air attacks on Syria in a bid to end Syria's decades-long support for Palestinian liberation: investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley told Sputnik that the US was using its aircraft based in the Middle East, along with its proxy forces inside Syria, to destabilize the Arab republic.

"We've seen the US activating the ISIS proxy forces to carry out attacks, particularly in the eastern districts to the east of Homs," Beeley said.

The response from President Bashar al-Assad's government has been to slowly increase pressure on the US troops illegally occupying north-east Syria's oil and gas fields.

"What we're now seeing is direct engagement between the US and the Syrian Arab Army," Beeley stressed. "This hasn't really happened before the attacks on the American illegal American occupation bases that are daily stealing Syrian oil from the north east and destroying agricultural resources."

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🇺🇸🇨🇳 Biden said he had one of his most productive meetings with Xi Jinping. Here's what he took away from the meeting:

▪️ Parties resume military contacts

▪️ The US. and China will resume cooperation against drug trafficking

▪️ The US will continue to compete with China, but will cooperate in areas where their interests coincide.

▪️ The countries will continue high-level diplomatic contacts following the summit in San Francisco.

Biden also warned Xi Jinping against possible attempts by the PRC to interfere in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, and when asked by journalists whether he considered the Chinese leader a "dictator," he replied, "Well, look, he is." At the same time, the American president said that if the leader of the PRC calls, he will "pick up the phone" and "that's important progress."

The main points, according to Xi Jinping:

▪️ The US should support China's inevitable peaceful reunification and stop supplying weapons to Taiwan.

▪️ China has no plans to surpass or replace the US

▪️ The US keeps introducing export controls and unilateral sanctions against China, which seriously harms Chinese interests.

▪️ Beijing hopes Washington will lift unilateral sanctions and ensure a non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises.

▪️ Both countries must effectively resolve differences, respect each other's red lines and principles, and refrain from provocations.

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❗️ The US Senate voted for a bill to fund the government, it does not include additional aid to Israel and Ukraine, the media reports voting results

❗️ On the night of November 16, Russian air defense systems destroyed two Ukrainian drones over the Bryansk region, and three more UAVs were intercepted over the Black Sea near the Crimean coast, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported

🇺🇸 A US guided-missile destroyer in the Red Sea shot down a drone launched from Yemen in the direction of the warship, a US Defense Department spokesperson said in a statement to Sputnik.

Last month, another US Navy warship, USS Carney, shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched by Houthi forces in Yemen.

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🇷🇺 Moscow hopes that APEC will remain a purely economic forum despite attempts to politicize it, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, who is leading the Russian delegation to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, said.

"As for the politicization of the APEC format, such signals certainly reach us. But we hope there will be no politicization," Overchuk said, also expressing hope that APEC will remain a purely economic forum.

He added that the APEC format is supposed to be a very practical forum aimed at creating favorable conditions for business development.

Deputy Prime Minister indicated that Russia's trade with South American and Asian countries and China is growing, and Moscow notices their desire to trade and develop ties.

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❗️ The IDF reported striking the residence of Hamas Political Bureau head Ismail Haniyeh

Who built Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza?

With the IDF conducting several raids on Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital over the past week, Sputnik explored what is known about this medical complex, which Tel Aviv claims has underground facilities used by Hamas as a fortified command center.

▪️Al-Shifa (“healing” in Arabic) started out as an army barracks during the British Mandate for Palestine era, being turned into a hospital in 1946 during the closing years of British occupation.

▪️The Gaza City-based hospital expanded into an entire medical complex during Egypt’s administration of Gaza between 1953 and 1967.

▪️Israel took control of al-Shifa during the Six-Day War in June 1967, which was followed by the Jewish state totally overhauling the hospital complex in the 1980s.

▪️In 1983, as part of this sweeping refurbishment, “a secure underground operating room and tunnel network” underneath the Hospital’s Building Number 2 was constructed.

▪️Despite Hamas purportedly knowing about the hidden underground fortified areas built by Israel in the 1980s, there is currently no direct evidence of their use.

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❗️ The Chinese Foreign Ministry called Biden's words about "dictator Xi Jinping" irresponsible and wrong.

"There are always people with ulterior motives who try to provoke and undermine China-US relations, but this will not be successful," the ministry spokeswoman added.

🇵🇸🇮🇱 Latest updates on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

▪️ The Israeli army is expanding its operation in the al-Shifa medical complex to the southern part of the hospital, media reported.

▪️ The IDF reported striking the residence of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh.

▪️ Israel's president said Israel cannot leave a "vacuum" in the Gaza Strip and must maintain a "strong force," media reported.

▪️ Biden said he told Israel it was wrong to occupy Gaza.

▪️ The UN Security Council should not stop at the adopted resolution on the Middle East, it is necessary to achieve a cease-fire, said the permanent representative of the People's Republic of China.

▪️ Some members of the UN Security Council do not have the courage to support a ceasefire in Gaza, the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN reported.

▪️ Israeli President said that joint measures with Cyprus are being discussed to deliver aid to Gaza by sea, media reported.

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❗️British Foreign Secretary David Cameron visits Zelensky in Kiev two days after the appointment