The “deliberate” destruction of the Turkish-Palestinian hospital was condemned as part of the “systematic state terrorism” of Israel.
Israel has exploded the only specialized Gaza cancer hospital, as well as adjacent medical school, leading to a conviction to again target a medical establishment, which is prohibited by international humanitarian law.
Friday explosion has flattened the Turkish-Palestinian friendship hospital in Central Gaza, which had already been seriously damaged by Israeli air strikes since October 2023.
Images published online showed a huge ball of fire and smoke rising from the location after the Israeli army has demolished.
It came then that Israel announced that it extended its operation in the so-called Netzarim corridor near the hospital and blocked all the movements on rue Salah al-Din.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent, Tareq Abu Azzoum, who reports from Deir El El-Balah de Gaza, said that destruction had left thousands of patients on the besieged territory nowhere where to go for cancer treatment, in the middle of the resumption of the deadly Israeli military operation.
The third floor of the hospital was already affected in an Israeli air strike on October 30, 2023.
The fuel shortages forced the hospital to close on November 1, 2023, the UN warning that the life of 70 patients was in danger. It later appeared that four patients died in hospital due to a lack of medical care.
“The hospital was used as a command center by Israeli forces during their previous military assault in the center and northern Gaza,” said Abu Azzoum d’Al Jazeera.
“It was completely exploded after being rebuilt with a Turkish donation of $ 34 million in 2017,” he added.
Israel later confirmed that he had destroyed the cancer hospital, saying that he had been used by Hamas – without providing proof.
‘State terrorism’
In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned “deliberate” destruction as “part of Israel’s policy aimed at making Gaza uninhabitable and forcibly moved to the Palestinian people”.
“We are calling on the international community to take concrete and dissuriting measures against the illegal attacks of Israel and systematic state terrorism,” added the ministry.
The Ministry of Health of Gaza also condemned Israel’s “criminal behavior”, which, according to him, is “in accordance with the systematic destruction of the health system and the completion of episodes of the genocide”.
The hospital was considered the largest Gaza cancer treatment establishment and was the only accredited hospital to treat up to 30,000 cancer patients per year.
Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, five children were declared dead on their arrival at the Arab hospital in Al-Ahli, also known as the Baptist hospital, following an air strike in northern Gaza, according to Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera, which reports to Gaza City on Saturday.
“There have been almost constant air strikes across the north of Gaza and Gaza City in the last five hours, with two massive air strikes targeting more residential buildings,” he said.
While Israeli bombings continue, Hamas said it was considering the United States’s “bridge” proposal to restore the ceasefire, reports the Reuters news agency, citing an anonymous civil servant of the group.
Germany, France and Great Britain put pressure on the United States to support an immediate restoration of the Truce of Gaza and for Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter the besieged enclave.
But the Middle East envoy by President Trump, Steve Witkoff, remained vague about a cease-fire.
In an interview with right commentator Tucker Carlson, he said that Trump’s plan for Gaza is to “stability”, while noting that “stability in Gaza could mean that some people come back … Some people are not doing”.
