Gaza Hospital Previously Ordered to Evacuate, WHO Condemns Israeli Attack: Impossible

WHO illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Guilhem Vellut)

JAKARTA - The World Health Organization (WHO) condemned the attack on Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip that killed hundreds of people, while the agency's regional official said an evacuation order for the hospital was impossible.

Palestine and Israel blamed each other for the explosion that occurred at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital, in which hundreds of people were reportedly killed. In the first hours after the blast, a Gaza civil defense chief said 300 people had died, while a health ministry source put the figure at 500.

It was also said to be the bloodiest incident in Gaza, since Israel launched a bombing campaign against the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for Hamas's deadly cross-border attack on its territory on October 7.

"This attack is of an unprecedented scale," said Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the West Bank and Gaza, as reported by Reuters, October 18.

"We have seen consistent attacks on health services in the occupied Palestinian territories," he continued.

Peeperkorn said that so far there had been 51 attacks on health facilities in Gaza, which killed 15 health workers and injured 27 others.

Meanwhile, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Ahmed Al-Mandhari said there were patients, health workers and internally displaced people in the hospital when the attack occurred.

"The hospital is one of 20 hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip that received evacuation orders from the Israeli military," he said.

"An evacuation order is impossible given the current insecurity, the critical condition of many patients and the lack of ambulances, staff, health system bed capacity and alternative shelters for those who have fled," explained Al-Mandhari.

Meanwhile, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, Mike Ryan, said it would be "inhumane" to allow health workers in Gaza to face the dilemma of treating their patients or fleeing to save their own lives. He said doctors and nurses chose their patients over themselves.

"It is very clear to all parties to the conflict where the health facilities are," explained Ryan.

"It is very clear that health services are not a target. This is enshrined in international humanitarian law. And we have seen this repeatedly violated over the last week. And this has to stop. This has to stop," he stressed.