Thea Fathanah Arbar, CNBC Indonesia
Wednesday, 18/10/2023 07:40 WIB
Photo: Hundreds of people were reported killed in a huge explosion at a busy hospital in Gaza City. (REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri)
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – At least 500 people were reported killed in an Israeli air strike on the Arab al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday (17/10/2023). This is the deadliest incident since the country launched retaliation for the Hamas group attack on October 7.
However, the Israeli military denied responsibility for the bombing. They said that military intelligence showed the hospital was hit by a failed rocket attack by Palestinian Islamists in the region.
The following are a number of reactions from various parties in the world regarding the attack incident, as quoted by CNBC Indonesia from various sources.
Palestine
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesman condemned the airstrikes as an act of “genocide” and a “humanitarian disaster”, Al Jazeera reported.
As a result of the incident, Abbas has also withdrawn from a previously scheduled meeting with United States (US) President Joe Biden, who was scheduled to arrive in the region on Wednesday (18/10/2023).
Jordan
In a statement on Tuesday, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the Israeli attacks and stressed the need for international protection for Palestinian civilians, as well as an end to fighting.
King Abdullah II said Israel’s bombing of Gaza hospitals was a “massacre” and a “war crime” that could not go unpunished.
Egypt
The Egyptian government has issued a statement condemning the attack “in the strongest terms”. The country also called on the international community to intervene and prevent further violations.
Qatar
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said the attack marked an increasingly dangerous escalation of the conflict.
“The expansion of Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip to include hospitals, schools and other population centers is a dangerous escalation,” the statement said.
Syria
“Syria holds Western countries responsible, especially the United States, for this and other massacres, as they are partners of the Zionist entity in all organized operations designed to kill Palestinians,” the country’s presidency said.
Turki
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack in a statement on social media.
“The destruction of hospitals housing women, children and innocent civilians is the latest example of Israeli attacks devoid of the most basic human values,” he said.
“I call on all humanity to take action to stop the unprecedented brutality in Gaza.”
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the attack and stressed the importance of observing the laws of war.
“The news coming out of Gaza is appalling and completely unacceptable… international law must be respected in this and in all cases. There are rules around war and hitting hospitals is unacceptable,” Trudeau told reporters.
Iran
Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the airstrike as an attack on “unarmed and defenseless people”.
World Health Organization (WHO)
“WHO strongly condemns the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital”, the UN health agency’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media platform X. He added that initial reports showed “hundreds of deaths and injuries”.
“We call for the immediate protection of civilians and health services, and for evacuation orders to be cancelled.”
Arab League
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that international leaders must “immediately stop this tragedy” in response to the attack.
“What evil mind would deliberately bombard a hospital and its defenseless residents?” he wrote in a social media post. “The Arab Mechanism will document these war crimes and the criminals will not get away with their actions.”
Hamas
“This hospital massacre underscores the brutality of the enemy and the depth of its sense of defeat,” said Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyehi, adding that the attack would be a new turning point in the conflict, as reported by Reuters.
Israel
“The whole world must know: It was the barbaric terrorists in Gaza who attacked the hospitals in Gaza, and not the IDF. Those who brutally killed our children also killed their own children,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said “analysis of the IDF’s operational systems shows that a barrage of rockets were fired by terrorists in Gaza, which were passing near the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time of the attack.”
“Intelligence from various sources that we have indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failure of the rocket launch that hit the hospital in Gaza,” he said.
United States (US)
“I am angry and deeply saddened by the explosion at the Arab Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, and the large loss of life that resulted,” said President Joe Biden in a statement as he was about to visit Israel, as quoted by AFP.
Biden said he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “immediately after hearing this news.”
He added that he had “directed my national security team to continue gathering information about what actually happened.”
“The United States firmly supports protecting civilian lives during conflict and we mourn the patients, medical staff and other innocent people who were killed or injured in these tragedies,” Biden said.
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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “horrified” by the deadly attack on a hospital in Gaza.
“My heart goes out to the families of the victims. Hospitals and medical personnel are protected under international humanitarian law,” Guterres said in his message on X, formerly Twitter.
In a statement issued shortly afterward by his spokesman, Guterres also condemned the attack on a UN-run school in a Gaza refugee camp that killed six people.
Watch the video below:
Video: Gaza is increasingly suffocating, one million residents flee
(luc/luc)
2023-10-18 00:40:03
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