- The Higher Presidential Committee for Religious Affairs in Palestine condemns the Israeli air strike at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City
Gaza: At least 37 people were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, notably in attack on the Al-Ahli hospital in northern Gaza, Deir El-Balah in the central part of the enclave and Khan Younis in the south, the Ministry of Health in the enclave said on Sunday.
According to ministry officials, two Israeli missiles struck a building inside a main hospital in Gaza on Sunday, destroying the emergency and reception service and damaging other structures, the doctors said.
Health managers at the Arab Baptist Hospital in Al-Ahli evacuated the building patients after a person said they had received a call from someone who had identified Israeli security before the attack. No victim has been reported, according to the civil emergency service.
Images circulating on social networks, which Reuters could not approve immediately, showed dozens of displaced families leaving the place. Some people drag sick parents on hospital beds.
In its declaration, the government’s media office managed by Hamas condemned the attack as a “odious and dirty crime”, claiming that Israel “destroys and deliberately destroyed and made outside service 34 hospitals as part of a systematic plan to dismantle what remains of the health sector in the Gaza Strip.”
In October 2023, an attack on the Baptist Arabic hospital in Al-Ahli killed hundreds of people. Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for the explosion. Israel said the explosion was caused by a launch of rocket failed by the Jihad Palestinian Islamic Militant Group, which denied blame.
The Palestinian Christian group claims that the hospital attack faces the Christian community around the world
The higher presidential committee for religious affairs in Palestine sentenced the Israeli air strike at the Al-Ahli hospital to Gaza City, reports Al Jazeera.
“The attack, carried out on Sunday of Palm, one of the most holy days of the Christian calendar, constitutes a serious violation of religious holiness and the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” said the committee, affiliated to the Anglican Church.
Committee’s head, Ramzi Khoury, said the attack was a direct affront to Palestinian Christians and the World Christian community.
The press release indicates that the Israeli aggression against the hospital was not an isolated event, but was part of a broader and systematic strategy to dismantle the Gaza health care infrastructure and other vital services essential to civil life.
The Al-Ahli Hospital “has never been designed for mass mass events”
Dr. Mohammed Mustafa, an emergency doctor who left Gaza just days ago, told Al Jazeera that the Al-Ahli hospital is very small and has never been designed to manage mass victims.
Mustafa, who worked in the hospital, said that when the Al-Shifa hospital was destroyed, he forced the Al-Ahli hospital to become the Focal Hospital in Gaza City.
Addressing Al Jazeera d’Amman, Jordan, he said that when he was in Al-Ahli, they could have up to 150 patients arriving immediately.
“The emergency service that has just been destroyed is a 5 × 15 meter department is very, very small,” he said, adding that it was the only emergency service “working almost a million people living in the region”.
He said that his colleagues had told him that the pharmacy had also been destroyed, just like the blood bank and that a child suffering from brain trauma who was on a fan died because the medical staff did not have enough time to obtain an oxygen cylinder before the Israeli forces hit the hospital.
Three Palestinians killed Beit Lahiya, Al-Mawasi ‘Safe Zone’
Al Jazeera’s correspondents on the ground report that two Palestinians were killed in the Israeli Al-Mawasi bombing in the southern gaza band.
Israel has appointed Al-Mawasi a humanitarian or “safe” area, but regularly attacked it throughout the conflict.
Elsewhere, a Palestinian was killed and several were injured after an Israeli air attack on a group of civilians in Beit Lahiya, according to Wafa.
The Red Crescent Dit Missing Gaza Medic in Israeli
Palestine Red Crescent Society said that a doctor who had disappeared since an Israeli attack on ambulances in Gaza last month is currently held by the Israeli authorities, AFP reports.
“Asaad al-Asasrah is owned by the Israeli authorities of the occupation. His fate had remained unknown because he was targeted with other PRC doctors in Rafah,” the PRC said, referring to the attack that left 15 doctors and dead rescuers.
