UNITED NATIONS, APR 14 (APP/DNA):Israeli warplanes struck Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in central Gaza early Sunday, destroying its main reception building and rendering the hospital inoperable amid ongoing Israeli air raids on the besieged enclave, according to news media reports.
Two missiles hit the reception department, setting fires and causing severe damage to the emergency ward, laboratory, and pharmacy, reporters on the ground said.
Medical staff at the scene confirmed that the hospital was forced out of service and can no longer receive victims of continued airstrikes.
The hospital, located in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, has been a vital lifeline for more than 1 million Palestinians in Gaza and North Gaza governorates, especially after the destruction of several major hospitals in the strip since October 2023.
In a statement, the Government Media Office in Gaza said Israel “committed a new horrific war crime” by striking a facility that housed patients, wounded civilians, and medical personnel.
“This cowardly aggression is not the first of its kind,” it added, recalling the 17 October, 2023 bombing of the same hospital, which left 471 Palestinians dead and hundreds more injured.
The office accused Israel of “deliberately targeting health institutions as part of a systematic campaign to collapse Gaza’s healthcare system.”
“So far, 34 hospitals have been destroyed or forced out of service,” the office said.
It also held Israel, the US, and European governments, including the UK, Germany, and France, fully responsible for the latest attack.
Hamas, the Palestinian group, also condemned the strike, calling it “a new war crime” and accusing Israel of “acting with impunity under American cover.”
“This criminal act confirms that we are facing a rogue regime that disregards all humanitarian laws,” the group said, urging international bodies and Arab and Islamic nations to take “immediate action to halt Israel’s genocidal war.”
Founded in 1882 and operated by the Anglican Episcopal Church in Jerusalem, Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital is one of Gaza’s oldest medical institutions. It became the primary hospital in northern Gaza following the destruction of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and other major facilities in earlier attacks.
With nearly all hospitals in Gaza either destroyed or severely crippled, Al-Ahli had been receiving dozens of wounded civilians daily since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March, shattering the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.
Gaza’s civil defense agency deplored the attack on al-Ahli Hospital in a statement, saying that doctors and patients were given only about 20 minutes’ warning to evacuate the building before the strike.
“The bombing led to the destruction of the surgery building and the oxygen generation station for the intensive care units.”
The hospital was first hit less than two weeks into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, when a missile hit a parking lot on the site where dozens of displaced families were sheltering.
More than 470 people were killed and hundreds of others injured back then
Hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly come under attack during Israel’s genocidal war and ethnic cleansing over the past 17 months.
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