Hamas said in a statement that the number of victims is over 870; Abbas declared three days of mourning
An Israeli airstrike on a hospital in the center of Gaza City on Tuesday afternoon left at least 500 victims. According to Hamas, the number of victims is more than 870. The president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, declared three days of mourning, reports the official Wafa agency. Political factions have also called for businesses to close their doors in protest.
The al-Ahli Arab Hospital is the oldest in Gaza, founded in 1882.
“A new war crime committed by the occupation in the bombing of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the center of Gaza City, resulting in dozens of martyrs and wounded arriving at the Al-Shifa Medical Complex due to the bombing. It should be noted that the hospital housed hundreds of patients, wounded and people forcibly displaced from their homes due to the airstrikes,” says a Hamas statement on Telegram.
Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, said in a television interview that at least 500 Palestinians were killed in the attack on al-Ahli Hospital. When contacted by the BBC, the Israel Defense Forces said they still had no details about the alleged attack.
According to the al-Jazeera television network, the hospital “is still on fire”. The report described the scene at the health facility as “catastrophic”. “There are still people under the rubble of the destroyed buildings. Medical teams are trying to pull out the victims, but there is a growing number of wounded in different areas of the Gaza Strip,” the channel’s website says.
The streets of the cities of Nablus, Tulkarem and Jenin have been taken over by hundreds of Palestinians protesting against the bombing. Governed by the PNA but still under Israeli military control, the West Bank has seen the conflict between Israel and Hamas spread to its territory since last Saturday.
‘Unprecedented’
The Israeli attack is the deadliest in five wars fought since 2008, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense.
– The massacre at al-Ahli Arab Hospital is unprecedented in our history. Although we have witnessed tragedies in past wars and days, what happened tonight is tantamount to genocide,” spokesman Mahmoud Basal told al-Jazeera.
Zaher Sahloul, from the US-based humanitarian organization MedGlobal, called the attack with mass casualties “the worst attack on a medical facility in the 21st century”.
– Bombing hospitals is against international law. It is a war crime. It undermines medical neutrality and the 150-year-old Geneva Conventions, and deprives a struggling local Palestinian community of access to health care,” he said. – This exacerbates the trauma in the Gaza Strip, sending the message that no place is safe, not even inside a hospital.
Although it is estimated that more than 500,000 civilians have migrated to the south of the Gaza Strip, following Israel’s ultimatum to the Palestinian population to vacate the area north of the Wadi Gaza River, the Israeli Armed Forces have continued to bombard the area of the enclave that many believed to be a safe area in the midst of the war. Palestinian officials say that 80 people have been killed in shelling in the area in the last 24 hours, with dozens injured.