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World Health Organization says healthcare facilities should never be targeted
From CNN's Jen Christensen
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People are assisted at Shifa Hospital after the Al-Ahli Hospital was hit by a blast in Gaza City on Tuesday, October 17, 2023. Mohammed Al-Masri/Reuters
World Health Organization leaders on Tuesday strongly condemned
the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital blast, calling it an attack “unprecedented in scale.”
In addition to caring for patients, the hospital had also been sheltering thousands of internally displaced people, the WHO said.
“We want to express our deepest grief at a horror, horror that has unfolded this evening at Al-Ahli hospital,” Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territories said in a news conference Tuesday. “This attack is unprecedented in scale, but WHO has seen consistent attacks in health care in occupied Palestinian territory.”
The WHO does not have specific casualty numbers yet from the hospital blast but said area reports indicate fatalities and injuries number in the hundreds.
“We are all deeply shocked by the events unfolding in Gaza this evening,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme. He added the locations of these hospitals is "absolutely clear."
Officials in Gaza have blamed an Israeli airstrike for the blast, while Israel says they did not strike the hospital and blamed it on a failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad militant group.
The hospital was one of 20 in the north of Gaza facing evacuation orders from the Israeli military, but the order has been “impossible” to carry out given the current security situation, and a lack of staff and ambulances, Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said.
The WHO said even before the hospital blast there were more than 100 attacks on health care workers: 51 of them in Gaza with 15 health care workers killed on duty, 27 injured and 24 health facilities damaged.
US President Joe Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday as he seeks to demonstrate staunch support for the country while also pressing for ways to ease humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Follow here for the latest.
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