Attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip. Main

On the evening of October 17, it became known about an attack on the Al-Ahli hospital in the Gaza Strip. The airstrike killed at least 500 people, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Gaza Ministry of Health. Al Arabiya later reported on X (Twitter) that there were more than 800 casualties. “All those killed in the attack on a hospital in Gaza were civilians,” – said Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Al Jazeera.

The Palestinian side blamed Israeli forces for the strike. According to Hamas, about 600 civilians were killed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning for the dead, and then, according to media reports, refused to participate in a summit with the leaders of the United States, Jordan and Egypt. A spokesman for Abbas’s Palestinian Fatah movement told Al Hadath that any summit without an end to fighting was “useless.”

“Many people ask why this number (of deaths) is so high. Because <...> these are Palestinians who have taken refuge in front of the hospital. They thought they would be in a safer place in front of the hospital. But this is not so in Gaza, this is not so in Palestine,” Nebal Farsakh, a representative of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, commented on the incident to the TV channel.

The Israeli Army (IDF) later released a statement in which it linked the incident to an unsuccessful rocket launch towards Israel by Islamic Jihad (an organization designated as terrorist and banned in Russia), also based in Gaza. The launcher was located in close proximity to the hospital, they added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also blamed terrorists for the attack on the hospital.

“The whole world needs to know: it was the barbaric terrorists in Gaza who attacked the hospital in Gaza, not the IDF. Those who brutally killed our children are also killing their own children,” he wrote.

Protests condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza took place in Turkey. According to Haberturk TV channel, about a thousand people gathered in Ankara. The action also took place in Istanbul.

Russia and the UAE have requested a meeting of the UN Security Council on October 18 in connection with the attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip, said First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the world organization Dmitry Polyansky in his Telegram channel.

Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev called the attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip a war crime for which the United States bears responsibility.

“The horrific attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip is clearly a war crime. And the final responsibility for it lies with those who cynically make money from wars in different countries and on different continents. Who thoughtlessly distributes colossal amounts of money for weapons, loading up their military-industrial complex. Who falsely proclaims their global mission to protect democratic values. United States of America,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.

The attack on the hospital was condemned by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. “Words are not enough for me. Hundreds of people were killed tonight – horrific <...>, including patients, healthcare workers and families who sought refuge in and around the hospital. And again the most vulnerable. This is completely unacceptable,” his statement said.

The situation in the Middle East escalated in early October when the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel. In response, the IDF launched Operation Iron Swords, which regularly attacks hundreds of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government announced that the country had entered a state of war. According to the latest data, the death toll during the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has exceeded 4,000 people, more than half of them are Palestinians.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, commenting on the situation in the region on October 17, accused the UN Security Council of inaction. The Foreign Ministry also accused the UN Security Council of not organizing an open meeting on the situation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone and consultations of delegations with interested countries for further steps.

Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said earlier that hostilities in the Middle East will end as soon as Hamas militants lay down their arms and release the hostages. Erdan called on the Security Council to declare the group a terrorist organization and support Israel’s right to self-defense.