On Tuesday, October 17, the Israeli Air Force struck the Centre of Gaza City. According to Al Hadath, several rockets hit the Al-Ahli Al-Madani Hospital (Al-Ehli Baptist Hospital). The attack was carried out without prior warning. At the time of the shelling, several hundred people were hospitalised, including those injured in previous attacks and people forced to leave their homes due to airstrikes.
Injuries and fatalities resulting from the strike have surpassed 800 individuals. According to some reports, 500 individuals have perished.
Most individuals were waiting in a courtyard outside the medical facility at the time of the calamity. It is observed that these were primarily infants and women. Complicated nearby structures were similarly impacted, resulting in both casualties and fatalities.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, every casualty was a civilian during the hospital assault.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestine, has ordered three days of mourning to remember the victims. The Gaza Strip-based HAMAS organisation labelled the assault a “war crime.”
Hamas has condemned the hospital attack in Gaza as an act of genocide and urged the general public to put an end to Israeli aggression.
Israel retaliated, asserting that the blast at the Al-Ahli Al-Maadani Hospital resulted from an erroneously discharged missile emanating from Gaza, attributing its cause to the Palestinian organisation Islamic Jihad. A spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) verified the Islamic Jihad’s accountability following a reassessment.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel refuted the allegations, attributing the hospital attack to militants.
Islamic Jihad Rocket Hit the Hospital – Israel
The viewpoint that Israel has adopted on this matter may be found on the official Twitter profile of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Israel claims that the hospital was struck by a rocket fired by the Jihad in an imprecise manner. The launch was inaccurate, and the post includes a video that documents the event using footage filmed and broadcast by Al Jazeera. An episode of Al Jazeera’s documentary series revealed the time that Islamic Jihad accidentally fired a missile at a hospital in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people.
The publication of the video followed the removal of another clip released shortly before on X. The removed video showed a battery of rockets launched at night, a flash, and an explosion. Some users, including a New York Times journalist, pointed out the timestamp on the video, which was recorded approximately 40 minutes after the time of the hospital explosion. The textual message from the Israeli armed forces accusing the Islamic Jihad remains on the profile, but the video has been removed. Later, the Al Jazeera clip was posted on the same profile.
The Palestinian organisation “Islamic Jihad” has refuted allegations that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were at fault for the fatalities in a Gaza Strip hospital.
Additionally, Islamic Jihad stated they could not determine which falsehood was the most effective explanation by Jerusalem. According to a statement from the organisation, at first, Lior Ben-Dor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, asserted that the detonation took place in the hospital due to the storage of hazardous explosives and weaponry within the premises, which were activated when rockets were launched from the hospital grounds.
The Disinformation Centre of the Turkish Presidential Communications Directorate stated that Israel’s claim that Hamas attacked the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza is false. The Centre determined, as reported by Anadolu Agency that the images propagated by Israeli propaganda accounts that purportedly depicted “a Hamas missile striking the hospital” originated in 2022.
Declaring Israel’s involvement in the attack, American journalist Jackson Hinkle linked the video of the assault on the Al-Ahly Baptist hospital in the Gaza Strip to the sound of American JDAM munitions “arrivaling” on his page on the social network X.
The published evidence consists of three fragments of video. In the initial one, a detonation and “arrival” are perceived as a result of what is believed to be a rocket assault by Hamas. The journalist asserts that the second fragment depicts an American JDAM aerial weapon strike. The third video segment depicts a hospital being attacked in Gaza.
In light of the hospital attack, Russia and the UAE have requested an immediate open meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
About the hospital
Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Anglican Church, Justin Welby, described the assault on the el-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
Frontier India has compiled data on the Church after the startling and tragic loss of innocent lives.
The el-Ahli Baptist Hospital was founded in 1882 by the Anglican Church’s Church Missionary Society (CMS).
Under the jurisdiction of the Southern Baptist Convention, the hospital’s administration, an American organisation from 1954 to 1982, was subsequently transferred to the Anglican Bishopric of Jerusalem. It is said that el-Ahli Baptist Hospital is the earliest hospital in Gaza.
Using its “American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (AFEDJ)” organisation, the Anglican Church spearheads the construction of medical facilities and health centres in Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine.
As per the Church’s News Service, this establishment, among the twenty-two operational hospitals in northern Gaza, provides medical care to 45,000 patients annually through philanthropic contributions.
As per Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, a projectile assault executed by Israel on October 14 resulted in the destruction of the hospital and the injury of four healthcare personnel.
Welby emphasised that healthcare facilities in the region couldn’t be safely evacuated after the attack, saying hospitals and the injured in Gaza are in great danger.
Welby stated that the recent attack by Israel on the hospital in Gaza resulted in a tragic and startling loss of innocent lives. The Anglican Church was in charge of the medical facility.
The Baptists, who oversaw the hospital from 1954 to 1982, are a Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated American organisation. The Anglican Church deems the hospital’s name, “el-Ahli Baptist,” inappropriate because of its affiliation with the previous Baptist administrators; the hospital is presently under the auspices of the Anglican Church.
The Baptists are a Protestant Christian denomination, and in 1638, Roger Williams founded the first Baptist church in the United States in Rhode Island. A 2014 Pew Research Centre survey found that Baptists constitute around 16 per cent of the adult population in the United States.
The Baptist Church has an estimated 51 million adherents across the globe and is renowned for its extensive missionary endeavours.
