News - Middle East: Israel’s Sunday airstrike targeting the al-Ahli Arab hospital, the last major facility providing critical healthcare to Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip, has drawn a wave of international condemnations.

The two-storey hospital, also known as the Mamdani Hospital or the Baptist Hospital and situated in Gaza City, received a warning only 20 minutes before the Israeli strikes early on Sunday.

The Gaza Health Ministry said the Israeli attack forced the evacuation of dozens of wounded people and resulted in the death of a sick Palestinian child.

It added that the hospital’s building was engulfed in smoke and flames, leaving it “completely destroyed” and leading to the “forced displacement of patients and hospital staff.”

The Israeli military claimed that it had struck a Hamas command and control center at the hospital, an allegation rejected by the Palestinian resistance group as a lie meant to justify the regime’s “savage crime.”

In a statement, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med) said the Israeli accusation against Hamas “lacks credibility in the absence of concrete evidence.”

The Geneva-based rights group also noted that Sunday’s attack was “part of a clear strategy to erode all means of survival by disregarding international legal protections for civilians” in Gaza.

The raid “flagrantly violates international humanitarian law and constitutes an international crime warranting legal prosecution and accountability,” it added.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the hospital is “out of service” following the Israeli attack.

In an X post, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for the lifting of the Israeli blockade on Gaza as well as a ceasefire to the regime’s genocide there.

The Qatari Foreign Ministry denounced the assault as a “horrific massacre and a heinous crime against civilians” that constituted a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

Similarly, Jordan condemned Sunday’s raid, along with Israel’s systematic targeting of civilians in the Gaza Strip and the destruction of vital facilities that provide essential services to its population.

Israel has been deliberately using starvation and blockade as means to force Palestinians out of their land, Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sufian Qudah said.

Additionally, Egypt urged the international community to take immediate action to halt Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Ireland ‘appalled’ by Israeli attack

Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin wrote on X that he was “appalled” by the Israeli airstrikes on the al-Ahli Arab hospital, saying, “The wanton killing and targeting of civilians has to end.”

Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

After one and a half years of war, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its declared objectives in the besieged territory, despite killing at least 50,944 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 116,156 others.

Source: Press TV