According to Palestinian officials, a massive explosion on Tuesday at a hospital in Gaza that was full of injured people and other Palestinians looking for safety claimed more than 800 lives.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement that when Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was bombed on Tuesday, it was providing shelter to thousands of displaced people. It said that several victims still remain hidden below the rubble.
Jordan’s foreign minister canceled a regional summit that was set to take place in Amman on Wednesday. The summit was supposed to bring together President Joe Biden, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. The cancellation came as anger over the hospital bloodshed spread throughout the region and as Biden was heading to the Middle East in an attempt to stop the war from spreading. Following the explosion at the hospital, the summit was called off. According to a White House official, Biden will now just travel to Israel.
The scenes from the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital were horrific. The hospital grounds were covered with torn remains, many of them small children, and the building was completely destroyed by the hospital fire. There were blankets, school backpacks, and other items scattered across the grass surrounding them.
The head of the UN demands a “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” as protests erupt spontaneously throughout the Middle East and beyond, as foreign leaders condemn the hospital bombing.
According to the Geneva Conventions guarantee protection for medical personnel, hospitals, and mobile medical facilities during times of conflict, in addition to the sick and injured. They cannot be the target of an attack in any situation, and doing so would be against the law. In addition, medical professionals who carry weapons to protect both their own and their patients’ lives are safeguarded, as are injured soldiers or fighters receiving treatment in hospitals and clinics.
Since Hamas’s October 7 attack in Israel, which claimed more than 1,400 lives, more than 3,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israeli attacks on Gaza.
While the Israeli military claimed that it was a misfire by Palestinian militants, Hamas blamed an Israeli bombing. The hospital explosion on Tuesday was called “a horrific massacre” by Hamas, which claimed that an Israeli strike was to blame.
Palestinian officials blamed the fatal event to ongoing Israeli airstrikes. However, the IDF denied any role in the hospital attack, attributing the damage to a “failed rocket launch” by Hamas.
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The intelligence that we have indicates that the Islamic Jihad attempted to launch a failed rocket, and Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN, “We did not strike that, and that the intelligence that we have suggests that it was a failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad, and I want to add, categorically, that we do not intentionally strike any sensitive facilities, any sensitive facilities, and definitely not hospitals. The “barbaric terrorists in Gaza,” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are to blame for Tuesday’s “attack” on the hospital.
According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Israel must produce satellite photos to demonstrate that it was not responsible for the attack against the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, as reported by the state-run RIA news agency. She continued, “Russia views the blow as a criminal act and a dehumanizing one.”
Israel has been occupying Gaza for almost a week, and in the meantime, hospitals throughout the region are finding it difficult to provide medical treatment for the injured due to a lack of water and electricity.
Important humanitarian supplies are gathering at Gaza’s closed border in the meanwhile, despite diplomatic attempts to create a passageway from Egypt. Officials from the UN and other organizations have stated that they require guarantees of safe passage for any future relief convoys..
Some individuals are targeting BBC over the tweet they shared about Hamas tunneling beneath hospitals 24 hours before the airstrike the Gaza hospital on X.
