Monday, 14 April 2025

Archbishop expresses shock over Israeli attack on hospital

Eighteen months after the Hamas attack of October 2023 triggered Israel's disproportionately brutal war on Gaza and its civilains, it comes as a new shock to hear that the Israel Defence Forces have bombed part of the last fully functional hospital in Gaza City. 

The Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, which operates the Ahli Arab Hospital, reports that two missile strikes demolished a two-storey laboratory and damaged the pharmacy and emergency department buildings. 

The Diocese says: “A mere twenty minutes prior to the attack, the Israeli army ordered all patients, employees, and displaced people to immediately evacuate the hospital premises prior to its bombing.” It adds that a child who previously suffered a head-injury died as a result of an evacuation process that had to be rushed.

The attack – the fifth during this war, and carried out on Palm Sunday – is outrageous. The Israeli claim that the hospital was a Hamas “command and control centre” rings hollow in the wake of the untruths around their March 23 killings of emergency workers in Gaza. A broad swath of international public opinion no longer believes Israeli protestations of innocence. 

It weighs heavily on my soul that the Israeli government is now pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, in contravention of international law and with the connivance of the United States. A call to all those prepared to listen is urgent and important. 

The full text of a statement issued by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem follows. 

News reports relevant to this statement can be found here:

and here: 

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