Palestinians decried an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday, as Tel Aviv continued its deadly onslaught on the enclave.
An Israeli warplane fired two missiles into the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital early Sunday, causing damage to the facility and putting it out of service.
The hospital serves over a million Palestinians in northern Gaza.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry denounced the attack as “one of the ugliest forms of genocide.”
“This is a clear contempt for international law, humanitarian principles, and the global community,” it 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.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry called on international institutions to “put an end to Israel’s ongoing violations and to protect the healthcare sector in Gaza.”
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas called the Israeli strike on the hospital a “barbaric act” that reflects Israel’s “brazen disregard for global public opinion and international justice mechanisms.”
It called on the international community to take a firm stand against Israeli assaults.
Hamas called for the formation of an independent international investigation committee to refute Israeli claims and uncover the “unprecedented violations” occurring amid a “continuing campaign of genocide and revenge.”
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.