Attacks on hospital in Gaza 'further evidence of Israel's violation': Foreign Ministry

ANKARA

Türkiye’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday slammed attacks by the Israeli army targeting the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in the Gaza Strip.

"The photo in the Palestinian press showing a group of Israeli soldiers in front of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza is further evidence of Israel's violation of international law and international humanitarian law," the ministry said in a statement.

The hospital is "the only center" for cancer patients in Gaza," it added.

"The damage caused to the hospital by Israeli forces and its use as a military base is part of Israel's systematic policy aimed at the annihilation of the Palestinian people," the ministry stressed.

Türkiye will continue to work to ensure that those responsible for these attacks are brought to justice in international courts, it said.

10 Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli attacks

At least 10 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip, as the deadly onslaught on the blockaded enclave entered its 284th day on Tuesday, Wafa news agency reported.

Medical teams in the eastern area of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, removed four bodies and three others injured from under the rubble of a home struck by the Israeli army.

In the city of Rafah, bodies of four Palestinians killed arrived at a hospital.

Separately, a Palestinian was killed and several others injured in an air raid on a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza Strip.

Another Palestinian was killed and two others injured in Gaza City as the Israeli army struck a home on Al-Nafaq street.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Besides killing more than 38,000 Palestinians since then, the military campaign has turned much of the enclave of 2.3 million people into ruins, leaving most civilians homeless and at risk of famine. It has also triggered a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

'Everywhere is a potential killing zone'

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern Monday over the ongoing situation in the Gaza Strip, saying "nowhere is safe" in the besieged enclave.

"The extreme level of fighting and devastation in Gaza is incomprehensible and inexcusable...Everywhere is a potential killing zone," Guterres said on X.

It is high time for the parties to the conflict to show the political courage and political will to finally reach a deal, he added.

Separately, Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the U.N. is calling on all parties to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and to take constant care to “spare civilians and civilian objects.”

"I can further tell you that we and our humanitarian partners continue to assist families who are being displaced from northern Gaza to areas in the south," he told the reporters.

Dujarric highlighted that the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that with each new evacuation directive, families in Gaza are being forced to make impossible choices: Stay amid active hostilities or flee to areas with little space or services.

"There is no safe place in Gaza. Not shelters, not hospitals, and not the so-called humanitarian zones," he stressed.

Israel, flouting a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack last year by the Palestinian group Hamas.

Nearly 38,700 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 89,000 injured, according to local health authorities.

More than nine months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.