THE ISRAELI regime intensified its relentless land and air bombardment of Gaza this weekend, including the bombing of the last functioning hospital in Gaza City.
The al-Ahli Hospital was bombed on Sunday after receiving just minutes of warning patients and medical staff to evacuate, forcing critically ill Palestinians, including amputees and burn victims, to flee.
This was the fifth time Al-Ahli hospital, which is run by the Baptist Anglican church in Jerusalem, has been targeted by Zionist forces.
Dr Moataz Harara, head of the hospital’s emergency department, said it had been treating between 300 and 500 patients a day along with 120 inpatients and that this attack had left the hospital with a ‘complete inability to operate’.
Fadel Naeem, the hospital’s director, told al Jazeera that the Israeli bombing had destroyed the vital emergency, radiology, laboratory and central pharmacy departments, saying: ‘We’ll need weeks or months to resume operations.
‘The fate of patients and the wounded is now unknown. We’ll have to distribute them to other hospitals, but no hospital is equipped to provide full services.’
In fact, every hospital in Gaza has been bombed by Israeli forces as a deliberate policy.
Since the start of its genocidal war, Israel has bombed, burnt and destroyed at least 35 hospitals in Gaza, including using massive 2,000 pound bombs supplied by the United States.
An attack on al-Ahli hospital in October 2023 killed hundreds of patients and staff and led to widespread international condemnation.
According to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 50,944 Palestinians are confirmed dead and 116,156 wounded while the Government Media Office has updated its death toll to over 61,700 saying thousands of people still missing under rubble are presumed dead.
This latest targeting of the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza has once again brought forth widespread international condemnation, with the head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, writing on X that: ‘Attacks on health care must stop. Once again we repeat: patients, health workers and hospitals must be protected. The aid blockade must be lifted. Ceasefire.’
Also writing on X, Labour foreign secretary David Lammy said the attacks on Al-Ahil were ‘deplorable’ and ‘must end’ before adding: ‘Diplomacy not more bloodshed is how we will achieve lasting peace.’
Lammy ‘deplores’ attacks on hospitals but he remains silent about the continued unswerving support, including the provision of military support, being given to the genocidal Israeli regime by Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
Hamas, which is engaged in negotiations in Cairo with mediators from Egypt and Qatar to broker a ceasefire, said in a statement: ‘We are ready to release all Israeli captives in exchange for a serious prisoner swap deal, an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the entry of humanitarian aid.’
Taher al-Nunu, a senior Hamas official, said that Israel is obstructing progress towards a ceasefire and that ‘Hamas has therefore stressed the need for guarantees to compel the occupation to uphold the agreement.’
It is clear that Israel is acting with complete impunity from international humanitarian law, treating the International Criminal Court, which has issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for crimes against humanity, with contempt under the protection of the US and its allies in the Labour government.
The imperialist powers will never guarantee the rights of Palestinians to their lives and land, free from Israeli occupation.
These latest developments in the Zionist war in Gaza are a massive call to action for the tens of millions of workers and youth across the US and UK to take action now against their genocide-supporting governments.
In Britain, the time has come for the working class to use its strength to sack the TUC leaders who remain silent and refuse to take any action in support of the Palestinian people, replacing them with a new leadership that will immediately organise a general strike to bring down the Labour government and bring in a workers’ government.
A workers government will end all complicity with Zionist genocide, recognise the independent State of Palestine and provide all the weapons and support required for the victory of the Palestinian revolution.