Israel bombed Gaza hospital after foreign medics were ordered out: Volunteer doctor

An international volunteer doctor at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza has confirmed that she and her foreign colleagues were made to leave the medical complex shortly before Israeli strikes killed about two dozen people, including five journalists, there.

The doctor told Drop Site News, an American investigative outlet, on Tuesday that the team of foreign volunteer medics, who had been sheltering and sleeping at the hospital, were instructed by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday afternoon to attend an in-person training session on Monday morning, just an hour before the deadly attacks.

“I was slightly surprised by this request, because any training now can happen online, particularly this kind of training, and we did question whether we needed to attend in person, as it would disrupt our clinical work, which is very important, but we were told that we needed to be there,” the doctor was quoted as saying.

The medics left the hospital at 09:00 a.m. on Monday, bound for the WHO headquarters in the city of Deir al-Balah, about a 30-minute drive away.

The movement had been coordinated as all UN travel inside the besieged Palestinian territory is cleared in advance with the Israeli military.

At 10:00 am, approximately an hour after the medics’ departure, the military carried out the first strike on the faciliy, hitting the fourth floor where the intensive care unit and operating theater are located, areas where some of the international volunteers had been working in.

Seventeen minutes later, a second strike targeted the stairwell outside the same floor, just as journalists, rescue teams, and medics had gathered there. Most of the casualties were caused in the second attack. Israeli fire also struck a balcony used by reporters for an elevated view of the city of Khan Yunis.

"This looks like a deliberate targeting of a healthcare facility, which is a war crime by all definitions and all imagination,” the doctor told the outlet. “It is an unacceptable, unthinkable, unspeakable atrocity.”

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu later conceded that journalists and first responders had been killed in the strikes.

UN rapporteur urges action after Israeli strike on Gaza hospital kills 20, including journalists

Albanese reiterated her calls for an arms embargo against Israel over crimes in besieged Gaza Strip.

Outrage is mounting over the strikes, with international organizations and several countries condemning the horrific incidents.

The United Nations has demanded that the Israeli regime investigate the developments, which killed civilians, including medics and journalists, and ensure the probes lead to accountability. 

Journalists' solidarity groups and international bodies have reacted to the deaths with shock and anger.

In a joint letter to senior Israeli officials, top AP and Reuters executives demanded “urgent and transparent accountability.”

The UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, stated that if Western journalists do not stand in solidarity and demand urgent access to Gaza, they will have failed their role in these moments.

Head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini said the regime is silencing the last remaining voices reporting about children dying silently amid famine.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also strongly condemned the airstrikes as "horrific".

About 250 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza in the regime's nearly 22-month-long assault on the coastal sliver, including during multiple confirmed cases of targeted strikes.

UN demands accountability for Israeli strike on Gaza hospital that killed journalists

Outrage mounting over Israel

Meanwhile, rights groups say the US administrations of both Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have transferred billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the regime, despite acknowledging repeated violations of the laws of war, making Washington complicit in the genocide as per the international law.

They groups have called on Washington to halt arms sales to the regime, impose targeted sanctions on Israeli officials, and suspend preferential trade agreements, warning that US weapons were directly enabling atrocities in Gaza.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir