Hundreds of people are believed dead and many more injured after Al Ahli Arab Hospital in the north of Gaza was struck on 17 October in the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
The hospital was one of the 20 located in northern Gaza that were ordered to evacuate by the Israeli government last week. The World Health Organization had called for Israel to reverse the order, which it said was “impossible to carry out” and had deemed a “death sentence for the sick.”1
Ghassan Abu Sittah, a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor who was working at Al Ahli Arab Hospital, said, “We were operating in the hospital, there was a strong explosion, and the ceiling fell on the operating room. This is a massacre.”
The United Nations and WHO have called for the “consistent attacks” on healthcare facilities in Gaza to stop and said that those responsible “must be held to account.”2 Palestinian authorities have said the Al Ahli Arab Hospital attack was carried out by Israeli forces, while the Israeli military has said it was the result of a rocket misfired by Palestinian militants.3
Speaking at an emergency …
