By Awad Rjoob and Ikram Kouachi
RAMALLAH, Palestine / ANKARA (AA) – Palestine denounced on Sunday an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City as “one of the ugliest forms of genocide.”
An Israeli warplane fired two missiles into the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital early Sunday, causing damage to the facility, which serves over a million Palestinians in northern Gaza.
“This is a clear contempt for international law, humanitarian principles, and the global community,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry accused Israel of “deliberately destroying 34 hospitals in Gaza since the war began and imposing starvation, thirst, and a blockade on vital medical supplies.”
“This crime would not have occurred without the complicity and failure of the international community to act,” it said, holding the UN Security Council fully responsible for its “failure to protect civilians, enforce an immediate ceasefire, open humanitarian corridors, and initiate sustainable aid and reconstruction efforts.”
Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital had previously been the target of a deadly Israeli strike on Oct. 17, 2023, killing 471 Palestinians and injuring hundreds more while the building was sheltering displaced civilians, patients, and medical staff.
More than 50,900 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.