United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said he was horrified after the deaths of hundreds of people in a strike on a hospital in Gaza while Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar demanded that Israel be held accountable for its “war crimes”.
The strike, which killed about 500, was the bloodiest single incident in Gaza since Israel launched an unrelenting bombing campaign against the densely populated territory in retaliation for the Oct 7 offensive by Hamas.
The Palestinian Authority’s health minister, Mai Alkaila, accused Israel of “a massacre” at Al-Ahli Al-Arabi Hospital. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed “barbaric terrorists” in Gaza had attacked the hospital, not Israel’s military.
According to the Turkish aNews, a Netanyahu aide, Hananya Naftali, had initially made a social media post attributing the hospital blast to the Israeli Air Force. He, however, swiftly deleted it and made another post blaming Hamas. Other journalists pointed it out as well.
Reacting to the strike on the hospital, Guterres said, “I am horrified by the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in a strike on a hospital in Gaza today, which I strongly condemn.
“My heart is with the families of the victims. Hospitals and medical personnel are protected under international humanitarian law,” he said in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
In another tweet, he called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Middle East to ease the epic human suffering”.
“Too many lives — and the fate of the entire region — hang in the balance,” Guterres said.
Kakar also strongly condemned the strike. “Targeting a hospital, a sanctuary for those in need, is an indefensible act of inhumanity. International humanitarian law give protection to hospitals and medical personnel,” he said.
He demanded an end to “indiscriminate targeting” and urged the international community to act swiftly to stop the violence and hold those accountable responsible.
Kakar, who is in Beijing for the third Belt and Road Forum, also mentioned interacting with the UN secretary general. “I urged him that global community should ask Israel to stop killing innocent Palestinians,” he said.
In a subsequent post, he said that Israel must be “held accountable for its war crimes as it continues its unrelenting bombardment and siege of Gaza that has resulted in death, destruction and displacement”.
“The backers of Israeli occupation need to reconsider their policies which provide impunity to Israeli authorities in carrying out their campaign of terror against the people of Gaza,” he said.
Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani said that the “heinous attack” by Israel was not an act of self-defence. “It violates international humanitarian law and targeted innocent children, women, doctors, medical personnel, and displaced civilians seeking shelter,” he said.
He called for an immediate halt to the “reign of violence and collective punishment against innocent Palestinians”. Jilani said that Pakistan strongly condemned the continued siege and strikes on Gaza and was calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“We must not let human suffering continue any longer,” he said, adding that the time to act was now.
The Foreign Office (FO) condemned the “Israeli strike” in the strongest possible terms, saying that it was inhumane and indefensible.
“The indiscriminate targeting of civilian population and facilities is a grave violation of international law and constitutes war crimes,” the FO said.
“We call on the international community to take urgent measures to bring an immediate end to the Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza and the impunity with which Israeli authorities have operated in the last few days,” it added.
US President Joe Biden, who will be travelling to Israel later today, said he was “outraged” by the strike at the hospital and said he had directed his national security team to gather information about exactly what had happened.
“I am outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion at the Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital in Gaza, and the terrible loss of life that resulted,” Biden said in a statement.
“The United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life during conflict and we mourn the patients, medical staff and other innocents killed or wounded in this tragedy,” he said.
Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf, meanwhile, said that the country was “ready to play its part” to be the first in the United Kingdom to offer “safety and sanctuary to the people of Gaza”.
Biden’s Mideast trip upended by Gaza hospital strike
Biden’s trip to Israel and Jordan faltered before it got off the ground Tuesday, after the Amman leg was canceled following the strike on the hospital.
The trip was always set to be the riskiest of Biden’s presidency as he tried to juggle support for Israel after the October 7 Hamas attacks with efforts to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and to avert a wider war.
But his regional balancing act came undone on the eve of his visit with news of the hospital explosion.
As Biden, 80, climbed the steps of Air Force One, Jordan announced that a planned four-way summit with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was off.
It would be held “when the decision to stop the war and put an end to these massacres has been taken,” said Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, however, told reporters aboard the presidential plane said that the Israelis “feel very strongly this was not caused by them”.
He added that it was a “mutual decision” to cancel the Jordan trip after Abbas said he wanted to return home for three days of mourning, and that Biden would speak to him and Sisi by phone on the plane home.
Yet Biden will now be flying into an even more volatile situation than before, with the hospital strike sparking anger across the region.
Furious protesters tried to storm the Israeli embassy in Amman where Biden was due to meet the other leaders, while in Tehran hundreds rallied outside the French and British embassies.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement called for a “day of rage” over the strike to coincide with Biden’s arrival, fueling fears of the very escalation by Tehran and its allies that Biden’s visit is supposed to warn against.
The White House said Biden wanted to “continue to stand in solidarity with Israel” after Hamas burst through its heavily fortified Gaza border, shooting, stabbing and burning to death more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
Biden would hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin and his war cabinet, as well as meeting the families of some of those killed and missing in the attacks, it said.
Kirby insisted however that Biden would ask Netanyahu “tough questions” about his plans for the conflict.
Islamic Jihad says Israel army accusation over Gaza hospital strike is ‘lies’
Palestinian group Islamic Jihad on Wednesday described as “lies” the Israel army’s accusations that it was responsible for the strike on the hospital.
The Israeli military had earlier denied responsibility for the strike at the hospital, suggesting it was hit by a failed rocket inside Gaza.
Later, it said that the strike was a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad Palestinian movement. “The hospital was hit as a result of a failed rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization,” it said in a statement.
According to the Israeli army, “intelligence from multiple sources we have … indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza.”
Spokesman Daniel Hagari told a press briefing that at the time of the strike, the Israeli army was not conducting air operations near the hospital and the rockets that hit the building did not match theirs.
“The Zionist enemy is trying hard to evade its responsibility for the brutal massacre he committed by bombing the Baptist Arab National Hospital in Gaza through his usual fabrication of lies, and through pointing the finger of blame at the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine,” the Islamic Jihad said in a statement Wednesday.
“We therefore affirm that the accusations put forward by the enemy are false and baseless,” it added.
According to the statement, the hospital had been ordered to evacuate by Israel under threat of bombardment, and it was a bomb dropped by an Israeli army plane that caused the tragedy.
It said the hospital had “received public notice made global of evacuation under threat of bombing”.
