Deadly Attack On Gaza’s Al-Ahli Arab Hospital
Desk Report
Published: 21 Oct 2023, 06:09 pm
About 3,000 people had taken refuge at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, escaping the intense Israeli aerial bombardment that began on October 7.
The attack targeted the hospital grounds, where many civilians were taking shelter.
Israel's intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip has not stopped after the deadly hospital attack, as Palestinians face a deepening humanitarian crisis with aid still not allowed into the besieged enclave.
Health officials said most of the victims of the attack were women and children and warned the death toll is expected to rise.
Israel has attributed the explosion to a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group - the group categorically denied this.
Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City has been helping people for more than 140 years.
The hospital was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip under Israeli military evacuation orders, which doctors and health officials pointed out is impossible to do given the dire situation.
Hundreds of the injured and dead were transferred to Gaza City's main al-Shifa Hospital, which is already overwhelmed with wounded from other Israeli attacks.
Health officials said some of the victims were decapitated, disemboweled, or were missing limbs.
The 12-day war on the blockaded Gaza Strip has internally displaced an estimated one million Palestinians, who say there is no safe place to go.
Al-Ahli Arab Hospital is a gruesome sight the morning after a massacre on its grounds – bloodstains on cement, grass and tattered bedding, shards of glass glitter next to shattered paving blocks and the twisted, burned-out remains of cars.
Three thousand people who survived missile attacks in other parts of Gaza had come to take refuge at al-Ahli, where they slept in the garden courtyard and in the upper floors of the hospital building.