Attack on Gaza hospital condemned

LAHORE:Aurat Foundation Lahore on Friday expressed its deep outrage against the deadly bombing in Gaza and Awar Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, which killed more than 470 civilians and buried hundreds under the rubble. The attack reportedly followed two warnings from Israel that the hospital would be attacked if the people inside were not evacuated.

Resident Director Sarah Inam said, ‘The bombing of hospital is an atrocity. We are equally saddened by the deadly bombing of a school in Al-Maghazi refugee camp on the same day that sheltered nearly 4,000 displaced people as well as two densely populated refugee camps.’

Aurat Foundation office-bearers expressed grave concerns over Israel’s tightening of the siege of Gaza, which has deprived 2.2 million people of essential food, fuel, water, electricity and medicine.An estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza are in dire need of prenatal and postnatal care. The number of internally displaced people in the Gaza Strip is estimated to be around one million. They reminded that the UN Security Council has repeatedly condemned the killing of civilians by starvation as a method of war, which is prohibited under international humanitarian and criminal law.

They called for the protection of all humanitarian workers after the World Health Organisation reported 136 attacks on health care services in the occupied Palestinian territory, including 59 attacks in the Gaza Strip, in which a large number of health workers have died. Israeli bombardment of Gaza has also killed UN Refugee Agency (UNRWA) staff and members of the Palestinian Red Crescent medical staff in an ambulance. ‘The total siege of Gaza and the unenforceable evacuation orders and the forced transfer of the population are violations of international humanitarian and criminal law,’ said Nabila Shaheen, legal expert and provincial coordinator at the Aurat Foundation Lahore. Sara Inam expressed her great concern and said, ‘Considering the military action in Gaza and the increase in arrests and deaths in the West Bank, as well as the statements of Israeli political leaders and their allies, the threat of genocide against the Palestinian people has increased.’ ‘There is no justification or impunity for such crimes,’ she added.