Doctors, aid workers shocked by deadly blast at Gaza hospital
'Tragically, appallingly, they were not lucky, and they were not safe,' church leader says of victims
Many of those who were killed in a blast that destroyed a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday had turned to the church-run facility because they believed it would be a relatively safe place when they had nowhere else to go, humanitarian officials said Wednesday.
Elderly people, young children and patients who were too sick or injured to move were crowded inside the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital when it was rocked by an explosion that evening. Some patients were on operating tables when ceilings collapsed on top of them.
"The people who were sheltering … they were desperate," Canon Richard Sewell, a leading figure with the Anglican diocese in Jerusalem, which runs the hospital, told CBC's As It Happens. "If they'd had a chance to go elsewhere, they would have done.
"I think they felt they had no choice and just hoped they would be lucky. And tragically, appallingly, they were not lucky, and they were not safe."
Hamas blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike while the Israel Defence Forces say "intelligence from multiple sources" show it was caused by a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group.
Whatever the cause, there have been more than 50 strikes against health-care facilities in Gaza since the latest surge of violence, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the West Bank and Gaza, says 15 health workers have been killed and 27 injured.
Humanitarian workers and doctors agree that such attacks are particularly abhorrent because, even during a war, health-care facilities and workers trying to save civilian lives are supposed to be left untouched under international law, including the fourth Geneva Convention.
"The fact that this has been repeatedly flouted, this rule of law, is creating an untenable situation," said Joseph Bellibeau, executive director at Doctors Without Borders Canada.
"What is happening is unconscionable."
On Tuesday, the hospital was packed with people who'd been forced from their homes as Israel continued its assault, in retaliation for Hamas's incursion on Oct. 7. In that attack, Hamas militants killed hundreds of civilians and took more than 150 people hostage — including several Canadians.
It's unclear exactly how many people were killed in the hospital blast Tuesday. The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza said 471 people died while another 314 were wounded, a tally that would make it one of the deadliest civilian events in the decades-long conflict between Israel and Hamas.
'Atrocious' conditions
Supported by charities, Al-Ahli Arab Hospital is described on its website as "a haven of peace in the middle of one of the world's most troubled places." The 80-bed facility in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood runs free programs to detect breast cancer, support elderly women and offers help to surrounding communities at no charge.
Now, Belliveau says, physicians have had to move surgical procedures to other hospitals in the city. He said they are doing operations on floors or in hallways under "atrocious" hygienic conditions without any anesthetic.
He says doctors fear people wounded in the blast will die because the territory is running out of medicine, water and other critical supplies amid the blockade Israel launched last week.
A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office on Wednesday said Israel would start allowing some food, water and medicine from Egypt into Gaza "as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas." The statement did not specify how much aid would be sent or when it might arrive.
Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's health emergencies program, said it was "inhumane" to leave Gaza's health workers with the dilemma of caring for their patients or fleeing to save their own lives. He said doctors and nurses were choosing their patients over themselves.
"It is absolutely clear to all sides of this conflict where the health facilities are," Ryan said.
"It is absolutely clear health care is not a target ... That is enshrined in international humanitarian law. And we're seeing this breached again and again and again over the last week. And it has to stop. It must stop."
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With files from Reuters