Yesterday, Tuesday around 7:00 p.m. a strike hit a hospital in Gaza and at least 200 people died and many injured, including women and children. Both camps reject responsibility, with the Israeli army saying it can provide proof of the involvement of Islamic Jihad.
This morning during a press conference the Israeli army revealed its evidence, it consists of aerial photos and above all a one-minute audio recording of a conversation in Arabic between two Hamas militants. Two men who discuss the responsibility of their ally, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an ally which is also affiliated with Iran. According to them, the rocket was launched from a cemetery near the hospital, suggesting that this missed launch would have caused the tragedy.
This is information to be taken with great caution, because in times of war information is a weapon. Hamas very quickly communicated after the explosion the figure of 500 dead, according to the Israelis these figures are inflated.
The doctors on site had to deal with a chaos of bodies and screams and we improvised a press conference among the bodies. Gaza’s hospitals are full, after 12 days of bombardment, hundreds of people had found refuge there, people who lost their homes, or who were unable to leave the area. According to the UN refugee agency, there were at least 4,000 people inside the hospital.
For the moment, it is impossible to attribute responsibility to one camp or another, because it would not be the first time that defective rockets sent by Islamic groups in the enclave missed their target and fell. on Gaza and this would not be the first time that Israel has bombed civilian infrastructure in the enclave.
Hours before the explosion, the UN accused Israel of bombing a school one of its agencies operated in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza and killing six civilians. The condemnations are unanimous throughout the world, in several Arab countries angry demonstrations have broken out, in Lebanon, Turkey, Tunisia, Iran and particularly in the occupied West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians have called for the resignation of Hamoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian authority. In Jordan, demonstrators tried to enter the Israeli embassy in Amman and the government had to cancel the summit with the American president where the Egyptian president was also due to visit.
Mr. Guterres stressed in his message on X that hospitals and all medical personnel are protected under international law.
The UN human rights chief described the strike on the hospital as “totally unacceptable”.
“WHO strongly condemns the attack,” agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in a post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter:
“WHO strongly condemns the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip. The hospital was operational, with patients, health and care givers, and internally displaced people sheltering there. Early reports indicate hundreds of fatalities and injuries.
The hospital was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military. The order for evacuation has been impossible to carry out given the current insecurity, critical condition of many patients, and lack of ambulances, staff, health system bed capacity, and alternative shelter for those displaced”.
On Tuesday night in New York, the United Arab Emirates said they along with Russia have called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Palestine, including the strike on the hospital in Gaza City.
Everyone is following what is happening, the question of Hamas remains essential but the conflagration of the West Bank which would pass through the North of Israel and which would bring Lebanon and Hezbollah to a real war would be the next step and hopefully no one wants it.
