‘Deliberate Attack on Life’: Outrage Grows After Israeli Strike on Gaza Hospital Kills Sick Child
Israel’s Sunday airstrike targeting the al-Ahli Arab hospital, the last major facility providing critical healthcare to Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip, has drawn a wave of international condemnations.
The two-storey hospital, also known as the Mamdani Hospital or the Baptist Hospital and situated in Gaza City, received a warning only 20 minutes before the Israeli strikes early on Sunday.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the Israeli attack forced the evacuation of dozens of wounded people and resulted in the death of a sick Palestinian child.
It added that the hospital’s building was engulfed in smoke and flames, leaving it “completely destroyed” and leading to the “forced displacement of patients and hospital staff.”
The Israeli military claimed that it had struck a Hamas command and control center at the hospital, an allegation rejected by the Palestinian resistance group as a lie meant to justify the regime’s “savage crime.”
In a statement, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med) said the Israeli accusation against Hamas “lacks credibility in the absence of concrete evidence.”
The Geneva-based rights group also noted that Sunday’s attack was “part of a clear strategy to erode all means of survival by disregarding international legal protections for civilians” in Gaza.
The raid “flagrantly violates international humanitarian law and constitutes an international crime warranting legal prosecution and accountability,” it added.
