Israel and the Palestinians blamed each other for the deaths of hundreds of people in Gaza City Hospital yesterday Tuesday, which sparked international condemnation and protests across the Islamic world, a few hours before the arrival of US President Joe Biden in the region.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, blamed the Israeli air force for the strike on Al Ahli Hospital, while the Israeli military blamed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group, for a failed rocket launch from for his part, eleven days after the outbreak of the war, which was triggered by the unprecedented deadly attack by Hamas on Israel.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad denied this, blaming Israel in turn.
The bombing provoked strong international reactions, while protesters took to the streets in Tehran, Amman, Istanbul, Tunis, as well as in Beirut, where incidents broke out with the police.
In Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, protesters demanding the resignation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas clashed with security forces.
US President Joe Biden, expected in Israel, “postponed” the trip he intended to make to Jordan, the White House announced. Mr. Biden is “outraged and deeply saddened” by the “explosion” at the hospital, according to a White House press release.
Jordan, for its part, announced the cancellation of a four-way meeting with the participation of US President Biden, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Abbas.
“Lies”
“From 200 to 300” people “are dead,” the enclave’s health ministry said, while “hundreds of (other) victims remain under the rubble” of Al Ahli Hospital in central Gaza.
Hamas reported more than 500 casualties and accused the Israeli air force of shelling the hospital.
The Israeli army denied this, arguing that “according to the information of our intelligence services (…) the (s.a. Palestinian) Islamic Jihad is responsible due to a failed rocket launch.” “We will present in the coming hours the evidence” for that claim, Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for Chahal, the Israeli military, said overnight.
“Lies” retorted the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which accused Israel of trying to shake off “responsibility for its crime”.
At the request of Russia and the United Arab Emirates, an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council will be held today following the bombing of the hospital, during which it is planned to vote on a draft resolution drawn up by Brazil, the country that presides over SA this month.
“We were operating in the hospital, there was a strong explosion and the roof collapsed inside the operating room. There was a massacre,” said Dr. Ghassan Abu Sita, who works for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières, MSF), according to a press release from the NGO.
The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem, which runs the health facility, condemned the “barbaric” attack “during Israeli strikes”, calling it a “crime against humanity”.
“Women and Children”
The Palestinian Red Crescent, for its part, denounced a “war crime” with “hundreds” of civilian casualties, “including women, children, members of the health staff.”
The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres – is expected tomorrow Thursday in Egypt, which is adjacent to the Gaza Strip -, for his part, said last Tuesday night that the massacre at the hospital caused him “horror”. Hamas’s attack on Israel “cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinians” in the Gaza Strip, he added today, in a speech in Beijing, after condemning “Hamas’ terrorist actions on October 7”.
Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shiite movement allied with Hamas, has called for today to be a “day of rage” to condemn “the massacre” it blamed on Israel.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared a day of “national mourning” today, while predicting that the attack on the hospital would come at the expense of Israel and its key ally, the US. On Tuesday, Tehran warned of the possibility of “preemptive action” by the “axis of resistance” against Israel as the Israeli army prepares for a large-scale ground operation in the Gaza Strip and today ordered the population in the northern part of the enclave to move south.
Since the outbreak of war on October 7, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on Israeli soil, the Israeli military has been shelling the 362 square kilometer Palestinian enclave daily, and the country’s political and military leadership has vowed to completely wipe out the Palestinian Islamist movement. .
The shelling, which the UN says has displaced more than a million of its 2.4 million residents, much of whom have sought refuge in hospitals, has killed more than 3,000 people, mostly civilians, including hundreds children, according to local authorities.
More than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel after Hamas carried out the attack, which also kidnapped 199 people, according to the Palestinian army.
Besides, the Israeli army announced that it found the bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters after their operation.
“I am asking world leaders that my daughter be given back to us in the condition she is in today, like the other hostages,” he said Keren Shem, the mother of Mia, a French-Israeli hostagea video of which was released by Hamas the day before Monday.
Intensive negotiations involving various countries are underway to secure the release of the hostages. According to Hamas, more than twenty hostages were killed in the Israeli bombardment.
Rafa always closed
Gazans are facing water and food shortages, and are also without electricity, following Israel’s October 9 siege on the enclave, which has been under a strict land, sea and air blockade since 2007, when it took power there by Hamas.
In the southern part of the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of people have fled, following orders by the Israeli army to evacuate its northern sector, the Rafah crossing, which connects the enclave with Egypt and is the only one not controlled by Israel , remains closed making it impossible for humanitarian aid to enter the enclave.
TCairo on Tuesday appealed to Israel to stop targeting the crossing area so humanitarian aid could pass through “as quickly as possible”.
As the Israeli army has deployed tens of thousands of troops around the enclave and along the border with Lebanon, nearly half a million Israeli civilians have also been evacuated from the fighting zones.
Tensions also remain high between Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement, an ally of Hamas, and the Israeli army on the border between the two states, where exchanges of fire have multiplied since October 7.
While in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, at least 61 people have been killed since the day the new war broke out, according to local authorities.
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military army will begin a ground operation when the right conditions exist, its spokesman said yesterday.
The operation is heralded as extremely dangerous and complicated, not only because it is a very densely populated area, but also because it is home to a labyrinthine network of underground Hamas tunnels where it is said to be hiding fighters and weapons.
Source: News Beast
With 6 years of experience, I bring to the table captivating and informative writing in the world news category. My expertise covers a range of industries, including tourism, technology, forex and stocks. From brief social media posts to in-depth articles, I am dedicated to creating compelling content for various platforms.
