Agencies
Gaza— The Palestinian civil defense agency said Israel destroyed the Ahli Arab Hospital, known as the Baptist Hospital, in an air strike overnight on Gaza City. It was the only remaining functioning health facility in the northern area of the Strip.
Since dawn on Sunday, Israel has killed at least 32 in attacks across Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
Israel continues its war crimes against 2.4 million Palestinians in the Strip ignoring the international and humanitarian laws, killing civilians including children and women in an unprecedented rate in the entire history of wars.
The agency said the bombing “led to the destruction of the surgery building and the oxygen generation station for the intensive care units,” as cited by the Gaurdian.
Gaza government media office condemned the attack saying Israel “is committing a horrific crime by targeting Al-Ahli Hospital which houses hundreds of patients and medical staff,” as quoted by the BBC.
In October 2023, hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed overnight by a single blast which was blamed on Israel and led to a wide international condemnation of the Zionist war machine.
Al Jazeera said the attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital “is a continuation of the Israeli army’s systematic targeting of healthcare facilities across the Gaza Strip since its war on the Palestinian enclave began in October 2023.”
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday, Dr. Mohammed Mustafa, an emergency physician who left Gaza just days ago, says al-Ahli Hospital is very small and was never designed to be a large hospital. Mustafa, who was working at the hospital, said when al-Shifa Hospital was destroyed, it forced al-Ahli Hospital to become the focal hospital in Gaza City.
Al-Shifa was subjected to a prolonged Israeli siege in March and April 2024, rendering it out of service. Speaking to Al Jazeera from Amman, Jordan, he said when he was at al-Ahli, they could have up to 150 patients arriving at once.
“The emergency department that’s just been destroyed is a 5×15 meter [16x50ft] department, it’s very, very small,” he said, adding that it was the only emergency department “functioning for almost close to a million people living in the area”. He said his colleagues had told him the pharmacy had also been destroyed, as had the blood bank.
Here are just a few examples of uncalled for genocidal Israeli attacks on hospitals in the Gaza Strip as cited by Al Jazeera:
- In November 2023, Israeli tanks surrounded the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya and fired artillery at the complex, killing at least 12 Palestinians.
- Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was subjected to a prolonged Israeli siege starting in March 2024. By early April last year, the World Health Organization reported that the facility, Gaza’s largest medical complex, was “in ruins” and no longer functional. Dozens of bodies were later recovered from the hospital grounds and surrounding areas, indicating that patients and medical staff had been killed and placed in mass graves.
- In March 2024, an Israeli nighttime attack on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed two Palestinians, including a 16-year-old boy who had undergone surgery two days earlier.
- At least 50 people were injured in the same month in an Israeli drone attack next to the entrance of the al-Helal al-Emirati Maternity Hospital in the Tal as-Sultan area of Rafah city.
- In May, Rafah’s Kuwaiti Specialty Hospital was forced to shut down after an Israeli attack just outside the gates of the hospital killed two of its medical staff.
- In December, Israeli soldiers stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, torching large sections, ordering hundreds of people to leave and kidnapping its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, and other medical staff.
- In March, Israel blew up the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, destroying Gaza’s specialized cancer treatment facility as well as an adjacent medical school.
The aftermath of Israel’s attack on al-Ahli Hospital. (AP photo)