Israeli air strike hits UN school: ‘Flagrant disregard for lives’

As emergency personnel continue to treat the survivors of the attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza, images are emerging of the heartbreak and devastation.

Bloodied children cry from their parents’ arms. The injured whir by on stretchers. And the bodies of the dead — estimated to be more than 500 — are brought to nearby facilities like Shifa Hospital, sheets concealing their faces.

The Israeli bombing of the hospital has already triggered widespread condemnation in the international community. See the story in pictures here.

People have taken to the streets denouncing “crimes against humanity” whether in Beirut or across the country. There is anger as news spread of the Gaza hospital attack and high death toll.

This is a country that is technically at war with Israel. People here are blaming those who support Israel – the United States, as well as other Western nations. They believe because of the unconditional support it allows Israel to disregard international law.

We’re getting reports of people trying to make their way to the US embassy to protest but the Lebanese army and security forces have closed all roads. Protesters are demonstrating outside the French embassy and ambassador’s residence. Hezbollah is calling for a major protest tomorrow in Beirut’s southern suburbs – “a day of anger”.

As for Hezbollah-Israel fighting, there’s been a gradual escalation over the past week. Today, there was an exchange of heavy fire. Many fear it can widen. But this is no longer Hezbollah versus Israel, this is the people versus Israel.

In Gaza there’s Hamas and in the Ramallah there’s the PLO, headed by Mahmoud Abbas who is recognised internationally as president of the Palestinian administration.

Because of quarrels, particularly since 2005, the level of the communication between these two Palestinians groups is at a minimal level.

But while communication has been quite restricted or limited at a leadership level, there has always been an emotional connection between the people of Ramallah and those who live in Gaza.

We’re seeing the people of Ramallah organise against what’s happening now in Gaza. And although we have so far not seen much confrontation in Ramallah between the Palestinians and Israelis, there’s a psychological threshold that could be triggered.

The Middle East is at the edge of an “abyss”, the king of Jordan warned, as fears grow the Israel-Hamas war could drag in other nations and armed groups.

“The whole region is on the brink of falling into the abyss. The new cycle of death and destruction is pushing us towards it,” King Abdullah II said. “The threat that this conflict spreads is real. The costs are too high for everyone.”

The king’s comments came after Iran warned of a possible “preemptive” action against Israel as it prepares for a ground offensive on the Gaza Strip.

The Iran-backed, Lebanese group Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier for days, further raising tensions.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has condemned the bombing of al-Ahli Arab Hospital in brief comments to reporters, but did not attribute blame for the attack.

“The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable. International humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this and in all cases,” Trudeau said in Ottawa.

“There are rules around wars and it’s not acceptable to hit a hospital.”

"The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable. International humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this and in all cases," says PM Trudeau as he comments on airstrike on a Gaza City hospital.
Please note: This corrects a previous… pic.twitter.com/VOtuwxOMxR

— CPAC (@CPAC_TV) October 17, 2023

 ‘Anger is palpable’: Protests erupt at Israel embassy in Jordan

Since news broke of the hospital attack in Gaza, hundreds of people have come out to the streets of not just Amman but other parts of Jordan as well. This country hosts more than two million Palestinian refugees, and palpable anger has been growing in the last 10 days.

Palestinians here have been saying the world is not doing enough to stop the bloodshed in Gaza, and they’re angry at the people who are supposed to stop the violence.

We are going towards the Israeli embassy; that’s where the largest protest has been happening. There’s a large security cordon around the embassy. The number of participants has been increasing by the hour. Sporadic protests are now happening across the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia strongly condemned the “heinous crime” committed by Israeli forces by bombing the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, the kingdom’s foreign ministry has said in a statement.

Separately, Jordan’s King Abdullah said the attack – which has killed hundreds – was a “massacre” and a “war crime” that one cannot be silent about.

In a royal court statement, the monarch said Israel should immediately end its war against the enclave and described Israeli actions against innocent Palestinians as a “shame on humanity”.

Evan Hill, a journalist with The Washington Post, has posted a video geolocated by the US newspaper that shows the moment the Gaza hospital was hit.

The video “captures a whirring through the air and then a blast, followed by orange flames”, Hill wrote on social media.

Video of the moment of the blast at Al Ahli Hospital, geolocated by The Post, captures a whirring through the air and then a blast, followed by orange flames: https://t.co/9C6AYwyP02 pic.twitter.com/Fa7T2DinCj

— Evan Hill (@evanhill) October 17, 2023

Thousands of people have taken to the streets outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul to protest the killing of more than 500 Palestinians in an Israeli air raid on a hospital in Gaza.

Russia and the United Arab Emirates have requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council after the Gaza hospital attack.

“Russia and the UAE have requested an urgent open meeting of the UN Security Council for the morning of October 18 over the Gaza hospital strike,” Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy says.

An Israeli air strike on Tuesday killed about 500 Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people, health authorities in the besieged enclave say.

The United States is responsible for the deadly Israeli attack on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, says Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

“The US holds the responsibility of the hospital attack because of the cover it gives to the Israeli aggression,” Haniyeh said.

Haniyeh added that the attack confirmed Israel’s “brutality” and the extent of its “defeat” after Hamas’s attack on October 7.

He also called for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to rise up against the Israeli occupation – just as thousands take to the streets in Ramallah.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said a barrage of rockets fired from within Gaza “passed in the vicinity” of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital at the time it was hit.

Citing “intelligence information” from several sources, he said the Islamic Jihad group was responsible for the failed launch that struck the hospital.

“Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza,” a military statement said.

Reporting from southern Israel, Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker noted Israel has regularly blamed attacks killing civilians on misfiring rockets from within Gaza.

“I have to say, they have said this before when they have struck targets in Gaza, things like schools in situations like this,” she said.

Dozens of protesters attempted to storm the Israeli embassy compound in Amman, Jordan, after the strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip, says a journalist with the AFP news agency.

The angry protesters got through a security barrier and advanced towards the embassy, but security forces fired tear gas to disperse them, the correspondent reported.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has cancelled a planned meeting with US President Joe Biden following the deadly Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital.

The meeting was due to take place in Jordan on Wednesday. Two “senior Palestinian officials” told Reuters news agency that Abbas is returning to Ramallah.

Abbas was scheduled to join Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the summit in Amman where they were to discuss the Israel-Hamas war with Biden.

“The president is very angry after the news of the Israeli massacre at the hospital in Gaza, and he decided to immediately return to Ramallah,” one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the cancelation has not been formally announced.

The WHO has demanded the immediate protection of civilians and healthcare workers in the Gaza Strip after the attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

“The hospital was operational, with patients, health- and care-givers, and internally-displaced people sheltering there. Early reports indicate hundreds of fatalities and injuries,” the UN health agency said in a statement.

The hospital was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military, the WHO added.

“The order for evacuation has been impossible to carry out given the current insecurity, critical condition of many patients, and lack of ambulances, staff, health system bed capacity, and alternative shelter for those displaced.

“WHO calls for the immediate active protection of civilians and health care. Evacuation orders must be reversed. International humanitarian law must be abided by, which means health care must be actively protected and never targeted.”

Palestinian forces in central Ramallah have fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters throwing stones and chanting against President Mahmoud Abbas, as popular anger boiled over after the deadly Israeli attack on the Gaza hospital.

Clashes with Palestinian security forces broke out in a number of other cities in the occupied West Bank late on Tuesday, according to witnesses.

There is a lot of anger at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, they don’t want him seeing Joe Biden in Jordan. There are also longstanding grievances at the complete ineffectuality of the government here.

This is by far the biggest protest in Ramallah since the Israel-Hamas war started. There are groups of men running and throwing rocks. Police are firing tear gas. There was another sound bomb blast.

Scenes of utter chaos here. Running street battles. Palestinian police are struggling to control the situation. This could get very ugly indeed. There are no signs that the crowds are being dispersed.

That is live gunfire.

PA President Abbas will be leaving Amman and heading back to the West Bank, says a PLO official.

PLO Secretary Hussein al-Sheikh said Abbas has called for an emergency meeting of the wider leadership tonight.

الرئيس محمود عباس يقرر العودة إلى ارض الوطن هذه الليلة ويدعو لاجتماع طارئ للقيادة الليلة.

— حسين الشيخ Hussein AlSheikh (@HusseinSheikhpl) October 17, 2023

Mustafa Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative Party (PNI), has said that the attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital should make Arab countries rethink so-called “normalisation” deals with Israel, which have been brokered by the US.

“I think it is absolutely shameful for any Arab government now to have an Israeli ambassador in their country,” said Barghouti, who co-founded the PNI as an alternative to the dominant Fatah and Hamas Palestinian political parties.

“All the acts of normalisation between Arab governments and Israel must be eliminated and cancelled. This is the least they can do,” he told Al Jazeera.

“But also they should tell the United States that enough is enough,” Barghouti added.

“The United States has so many interest in the Arab world. So many countries provide the United States with oil and gas and support and markets and everything. Now, the United States is killing us practically by supporting this Israeli war crime. And this should stop.”

Qatar’s foreign ministry has issued a statement strongly condemning the Israeli air raid on the Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of civilians.

“The expansion of Israeli attacks over the Gaza Strip to include hospitals, schools, and other population centers is a dangerous escalation,” the statement said.

This is what we know so far:

• The Health Ministry in Gaza says an Israeli air raid on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City has killed more than 500 Palestinians.
• Hundreds of victims remain under the rubble, the ministry says.
• The hospital is run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.
• It served a dual purpose: It was a shelter for Palestinians who fled their homes following Israeli evacuation orders, as well as housing patients.
• The attack has been condemned by the WHO, which called for the protection of civilians.
• Egypt also condemned the attack and urged the international community to act.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the attack on a Gaza hospital was “the latest example of Israel’s attacks devoid of the most basic human values.”

“I call on all humanity to take action to stop this unprecedented brutality in Gaza,” Erdogan wrote on social media platform X.

The idea that a hospital and school were bombarded, apartment buildings were bombarded, killing hundreds, many hundreds, of civilians within hours – that is a perpetual massacre on a scale we haven’t seen since World War II.

In the last few days we’ve heard from Israeli leaders saying there are no innocent Palestinians in Gaza – that they are all responsible for the Hamas attack.

This massacre does, in fact, take the shape of a genocide because there is now a stated and clear intent to hurt the Palestinians. They are not collateral damage – killed by mistake in a bombardment of the Gaza Strip – they are now targeted.

Even the people who are fleeing for their lives to the south are being bombarded. Clearly, no one is safe. Nowhere is safe in Gaza.

Tzahi Hanegbi, head of Israel’s National Security Council, suggested entry of aid into Gaza depends on the release of captives held by Hamas.

“The return of the hostages, which is sacred in our eyes, is a key component in any humanitarian efforts,” Hanegbi told reporters. Hamas is holding about 200 people after its October 7 attack.

Israel is barring entry of water, fuel and food into Gaza and has received criticism for “collective punishment” against the besieged territory’s 2.3 million people.

People have been forced to dig wells near the sea to fetch water as Gaza has run out of potable water.

Egypt has condemned the Israeli attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, calling it “a dangerous violation” of international humanitarian law (IHL).

“This deliberate attack on civilian targets is a dangerous violation of IHL and basic human values,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

pic.twitter.com/3stCHdYKvL

— Egypt MFA Spokesperson (@MfaEgypt) October 17, 2023

The al-Ahli Hospital was not the only civilian target attacked in Gaza. A UN-operated school housing thousands of war displaced was also hit earlier with at least six people killed.

Tamara al-Rifai, from the UN Relief and Works Agency, says there was “direct Israeli fire” on the facility and another refugee centre in the area.

“An attack on densely populated refugee camps where people are sheltering in UN schools and premises is something that is utterly shocking. It is a very sad violation of international humanitarian law. I am lost for words right now,” al-Rifai told Al Jazeera.

“We clearly identify all of our buildings and we share the coordinates, the GPS, with all of the [war] parties. That camp hosted 4,000 displaced people.”

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has denounced the bombing of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, and renewed calls for President Biden to push for an end to the conflict.

“This is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate,” Tlaib wrote in a social media post, addressing Biden.

“Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslim Americans like me. We will remember where you stood.”

Tlaib and several of her progressive colleagues have introduced a congressional resolution urging a ceasefire.

Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.

Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many… https://t.co/mZYoifT7bj

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 17, 2023

Zaher Sahloul, president of the US-based MedGlobal humanitarian organisation, has called the mass-casualty Israeli strike on al-Ahli Arab Hospital “the worst attack on a medical facility in the 21st century”.

“Bombing hospitals is against international law. It is a war crime. It undermines medical neutrality and the 150-year-old Geneva Conventions, and deprives a distressed local Palestinian community from access to healthcare,” Sahloul said.

“It compounds trauma in the Gaza Strip, sending the message that nowhere is safe, not even inside a hospital,” he said.

The World Health Organization’s director-general has condemned the deadly attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for the “immediate protection of civilians” and for Israel’s “evacuation orders to be reversed”.

.@WHO strongly condemns the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital in north Gaza.

Early reports indicate hundreds of deaths and injuries.
 
We call for the immediate protection of civilians and health care, and for the evacuation orders to be reversed.#NotATarget https://t.co/6I4t99WV03

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 17, 2023

Nebal Farsakh, a representative from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, says many of those who gathered at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City were heeding the Israeli demand to evacuate but were unable to travel south.

“Many people are asking why this number is so high. [It’s] because … these are Palestinians who sought refuge in front of the hospital. They thought they would be in a safer place in front of a hospital. But this is not the case in Gaza, this is not the case in Palestine,” she told Al Jazeera from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

“Those who were in front of the hospital were forced to leave their homes under the evacuation order. They can’t even afford to evacuate to the south. There’s complete destruction of the infrastructure and transportation,” she said.

“They are forced to evacuate themselves under continuous bombardment. The only available is a hospital, so they’re thinking that they would be in a safe place.

“This is genocide. This is a war crime.”

Ziad Shehadah, a medical doctor and resident of Gaza, tells Al Jazeera from the Gaza Strip:

“What’s happened is terrible because those people, all of them, are civilians. They fled their homes and reached a place that they believed was safe – a hospital, which according to international law, is a safe place.

“People left their homes thinking they were more dangerous and they moved to our schools and hospitals to be safe. And in one minute, all of them have been killed at a hospital.

“The death toll right now is more than 500, but we believe that number will reach more than 1,000. It is a massacre.”

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari says there are still no details on the deaths at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

“We will get the details and update the public. I don’t know to say whether it was an Israeli air strike,” he said.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has declared three days of mourning following the Israeli bombing of al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reports.

Various political factions have also called on Palestinians in the West Bank to observe a commercial strike on Wednesday to protest the deadly Israeli attack on the hospital.

The Israeli attack on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City is the deadliest Israeli air strike in five wars fought since 2008, says the Palestinian Civil Defence.

“The massacre at al-Ahli Arab Hospital is unprecedented in our history. While we’ve witnessed tragedies in past wars and days, what took place tonight is tantamount to a genocide,” spokesman Mahmoud Basal said.

Photos purportedly from al-Ahli Hospital shared widely on social video showed fire engulfing the building, widespread damage and bodies scattered in the wreckage.

Several hospitals in Gaza City have become refuges for hundreds of people, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

Biden is under an enormous amount of pressure for the stance he has taken – by not condemning the actions of the Israeli military. The attack that we are witnessing playing out on our screens [at al-Ahli Arab Hospital] is going to make it that much more difficult for the president.

Now what we have seen in the last 24, 36, 48 hours is a bit of a shift in the tone and language coming out of the White House.

Earlier in the week, there was no question that what we saw was a very tough tone that was very much echoing that of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the more recent hours, what we’ve seen is more of a shift towards highlighting and prioritising humanitarian support and making sure that the people of Gaza have the food, the medicine and the water that they need, making sure that civilians got safe passage out of Gaza. It is still something that the US president says that he has to work on with the leaders in the region.

There is no question that that is going to be even more of a priority in light of what we are seeing right now – the attack on this hospital.

The situation here is really catastrophic. There are still people under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Medical teams are trying to evacuate the victims, but there is an increasing number of victims across different areas in the Gaza Strip. Hundreds and thousands.

We are talking about collective punishment for Palestinians. Hundreds of massacres have been committed during this round of fighting. Hundreds of young children and women killed by the continuing Israeli attacks.

Families [have] evacuated from north and central Gaza towards southern areas, but the bombardment is still ongoing.

Clearly, there is not any safe place inside the Gaza Strip.MT)

Hassan Khalaf, the medical director of al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City, about one kilometre (less than a mile) from al-Ahli Arab, says the hospital “is still burning” after Israel’s attack.

Khalaf told Al Jazeera that thousands of Palestinians have been injured in the continuing Israeli bombardment and there is no safe place left.

“Where [is there] to go?” he asked.

“They want to do massacres and massacres and massacres in Gaza.”

Hundreds of Palestinians have taken to the streets of the West Bank cities of Nablus, Tulkarem and Jenin to protest the Israeli air raid on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

At least 500 have been killed in the attack on the hospital, according to the health ministry in the besieged coastal enclave.

The health ministry in the Gaza Strip says at least 500 people have been killed in an Israeli attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

Gaza’s Hamas government described the attack as a “war crime”.

“The hospital was housing hundreds of sick and wounded, and people forcibly displaced from their homes” because of other Israeli attacks, a statement said.

About 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since the war erupted on October 7. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed.

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of paediatrics at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, says the bombing of hospitals is “unconscionable and yet we have seen it again and again”.

“We are fighting to save wounded children, pregnant mothers, babies are being born here,” Abu Safiya said in a statement after the attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

“Over 200 dead bodies were brought to Shifa hospital today, mostly women and children. They must stop targeting us.”

There are “hundreds of victims” under the rubble of a Gaza hospital compound that was hit by Israeli bombing, says the Health Ministry in the besieged coastal enclave.

The ministry said earlier at least 200 people were killed in the attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

Prime Minister Scholz took shelter in the German embassy amid the latest wave of rockets fired from Gaza at Tel Aviv and southern Israel, according to the dpa news agency.

Israeli media has reported that one rocket landed in the southern city of Sderot.

No casualties were immediately reported in the barrage and it was not immediately clear what proportion of the rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system.

Hamas’s military wing also claimed it had shelled the northern city of Haifa with an R-160 rocket. An Israeli military spokesperson said an alert had been activated in the north of the country, but did not immediately provide further details.

Ibrahim Fraihat, a researcher from the Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, says war crimes being committed by Israel need to be addressed by the US government and the International Criminal Court.

“This new massacre from the Israeli bombardment, it shouldn’t be surprising. The bombardment is reaching every centimetre of Gaza, there is no safe area. This hospital that’s been hit is in an area where Israel ordered the people to evacuate to. It is supposed to be a safe zone.

“How on Earth is this going to be a ‘Hamas target’? This is a question the Israeli government should answer. Those in charge and the policymakers should all be held responsible. No one is taking action,” Fraihat told Al Jazeera.

The Israeli bombing of a Palestinian hospital in Gaza is a “war crime”, says a leading Palestinian human rights group.

Al Mezan posted on X that hospitals “are entitled to special protection” under international humanitarian law.

“This is a war crime, plain and simple.”

Following Israel's 'evacuation order', hundres of Palestinian civilians have taken shelter in hospitals, including Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

Hospitals are entitled to special protection under IHL, and must be protected in all circumstances.

This is a war crime, plain and simple. https://t.co/VOso0C58SH

— Al-Mezan الميزان (@AlMezanCenter) October 17, 2023

This hospital [al-Ahli Arab Hospital], which is located in the central Gaza Strip, has been bombarded without any prior warning, causing severe destruction which prevents the hospital from continuing and providing medical services for thousands of people.

This hospital contains hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians injured during the continuing Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave.

It is crowded with civilians. Just at this moment, hundreds of wounded people have reached the hospital. The area is full of residential buildings.

This is a true massacre that has taken place.

Large numbers of injured people are being brought into al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after an Israeli attack on the courtyard of al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

Many of the wounded appeared to be women and children. Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was sheltering families amid Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza.

We’ll bring you more details as we get them.

Hundreds feared dead in hospital attack: Gaza authorities