A BLAST killed hundreds of people at Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, sending shockwaves across the globe. More than 600 people have died in the air strike. The magnitude of devastation is such that fearing a backlash, neither of the sides is taking responsibility for the attack; rather, both Israel and Hamas blame each other for the hospital strike. While Gaza has said that an Israeli air strike caused the blast, Israeli military has blamed it on a failed rocket launch by Hamas terrorist group.
While Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the “barbaric terrorists” in Gaza and not Israel military attacked the hospital, Palestinian Health Minister Mai Alkaila accuses Israel of massacre at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital. “The entire world should know: It was barbaric terrorists in Gaza that attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the IDF. Those who brutally murdered our children also murder their own children,” said Netanyahu.
Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that rockets fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group passed by the hospital at the time of the strike. Another spokesperson said that the Israeli military intercepted a conversation that acknowledged a misfire. Iran-backed Islamic Jihad that took part in Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, denied the involvement of any of its rockets in the blast, and said they did not have any activity in or around Gaza at that time.
It is believed that never before has been recorded such a huge number of civilian deaths in one go in the conflicted history of Israel and Palestine.
The Gaza hospital blast took place just ahead of US President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel to show its support to the country in its war against Hamas. Biden said he was “outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion” at the hospital and the subsequent loss of life. “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,” said Biden.
What is tragic is that contending forces in wars never take ownership of the civilian killings. The forces at war always pass the buck to the opposite side and the same thing is happening in Gaza.
The worst kind of terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel and subsequent killing of innocent civilian by the Hamas terrorists has outraged the whole world. Condemnations have poured in from all directions. The terrorists exhibited brutality by parading the hostages naked and killing them in the streets of Gaza. Israel was within her rights to strike back on Hamas terrorist group. However, it engaged in the worst kind of war crimes by cutting all essential lines to the two million Gazans and indulged in bombing civilian areas indiscriminately. The whole Gaza strip has been turned into an open-air jail and people are without food and shelter. What Hamas did was the worst face of terrorism and what Israel is doing is genocide. Shielding one or the other for any reason is criminal. The world leaders should immediately prevail upon both to cease the strikes as soon as possible.
