Aha Dua Permata: Hamas blames US for deadly hospital strike

Thursday 19 October 2023

Hamas blames US for deadly hospital strike

Washington has given “unlimited cover” to Israel since its air campaign against Gaza began, militant leader Ismail Haniyeh said Hamas blames US for deadly hospital strike

FILE PHOTO: Ismail Haniyeh holds a press conference during his visit to the Dar al-Fatwa in Beirut, Lebanon, June 22, 2022 © AFP / Anwar Amro

By enabling Israel’s “brutality,” the US is ultimately responsible for the bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has declared. Haniyeh said that the bombing would “constitute a turning point” in his group’s struggle against the Jewish state.

“The Americans who gave unlimited cover bear responsibility for the Baptist [Hospital] massacre. Whoever supports Israel is responsible for its violations in Gaza,” he said in a televised statement on Tuesday night.

“The hospital massacre confirms the enemy’s brutality and the extent of his feeling of defeat,” Haniyeh continued, adding that “this massacre will constitute a turning point and a flood added to the flood of Al-Aqsa,” referring to the name of Hamas’ ongoing operation against Israel.

The Christian-run Al-Ahli Hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, was destroyed in an apparent missile strike on Tuesday. Palestinian officials accused Israel of targeting the facility, while Israel blamed the blast on a wayward rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad militant group, despite a government spokesman seemingly taking responsibility immediately after the strike.

Some 471 Palestinians were killed and more than 314 wounded in the strike, the Palestinian Health Ministry stated on Wednesday, calling the attack “an Israeli massacre.”

At the time of the strike, Israeli warplanes had been conducting continuous airstrikes on Gaza for over a week. Throughout this time, American officials have expressed solidarity with Israel and pledged increased military aid to the Jewish state. Speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden claimed that the attack “was done by the other team, and not by you.”

Biden explained that he visited Israel “for a simple reason – I want the people of Israel and the people of the world to know where the US stands.”

The hospital's destruction sparked protests and riots across the Muslim world and led Jordan to cancel a planned summit between Biden and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Amid condemnation from Arab governments, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared on Wednesday that the “final responsibility” for the “war crime” at the hospital “lies with those who cynically make money from wars… With those who thoughtlessly distribute colossal amounts of money for weapons to load its military-industrial complex with work and falsely proclaim their global mission to protect democratic values. The United States of America.”

The US has vetoed Brazil’s UN effort to impose “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza

The US has vetoed Brazil’s UN effort to impose “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza and cancel Israel’s North Gaza evacuation order. In total, 12 countries voted in favor of the resolution. The UK and Russia abstained from voting. Moscow explained its decision by saying that the resolution lacked direct calls for a ceasefire. Earlier, the UN Security Council, specifically the US, UK, France, and Japan, rejected a Russian resolution on the matter, saying that the condemnation of Hamas in the proposed document was not strong enough.

It's in blue now. See below. pic.twitter.com/V7erkd93Gq
— Rami Ayari (@Raminho) October 18, 2023

Hamas will release proof that the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza had been “intentionally” struck by the Israeli forces, the Palestinian armed group’s spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, told Newsweek. “There’s a lot of evidence, eyewitnesses, and videos from Hamas about the occupation committing the Baptist Hospital massacre and the wreckage of rockets,” he insisted. Barhoum didn’t say when exactly this data will be made public.

US President Joe Biden was asked by reporters what made him support Israel’s claim that it had nothing to do with the deadly strike on Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. “The data I was shown by my Defense Department,” Biden replied.

Biden asked by reporters on what he is basing his assessment that the Gaza hospital blast was a failed rocket launch:

"Data I was shown by my Defense Department," he answers. pic.twitter.com/U0I8gIedjP
— Amy Spiro (@AmySpiro) October 18, 2023

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has evacuated the staff of the country's embassies in Rabat, Morocco and Cairo, Egypt, Ynet reported, due to the protests which rocked the two Muslim nations in response to the IDF's deadly airstrikes on Gaza. The move comes as West Jerusalem has placed all of its diplomatic missions around the globe on high alert, the news outlet added.

The latest figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry suggest that 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and another 12,000 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on the enclave since October 7.

A total of 471 Palestinians were killed and more than 314 wounded in the strike on Al-Ahli hospital, Gaza Healthy Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra has said. He called the attack on the medical facility an “Israeli massacre.”

An Al Jazeera correspondent earlier reported from the scene that most of the victims were men and children, who were sleeping outside the facility when the missile hit the parking lot. Most of the women and babies were inside the building at the moment of the blast, he added.

The Foreign Minister of Iran Hossein Amirabdollahian has called on Muslim nations to slap restrictions on Israel over its continued bombardment of Gaza. During an urgent meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Saudi city of Jeddah, Amirabdollahian proposed “an immediate and complete embargo on Israel by Islamic countries, including oil sanctions, in addition to expelling Israeli ambassadors if relations with the Zionist regime have been established,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.