The bombing of the Baptist Hospital in the Zeitoun neighborhood (southern Gaza Strip) did not begin last Tuesday, as the events that preceded the bombing are no less important or grave than what followed. The occupation army was determined to bomb it and remove it from service, and used a special weapon that kills the victims and cuts their bodies, and did not take into account the crowding of displaced people in the hospital yard to escape the constant threat of bombing the old popular neighborhoods in Gaza, which are densely populated.
The full story of this tragedy is told to Al Jazeera Net head of the orthopedic department at Baptist Hospital, Dr. Fadl Naim, who was a witness to all the details, saying that the events began 3 days before the last bombing, specifically on the evening of October 14, two shells were fired at the outpatient building and the cancer diagnostic center of the Baptist Hospital.
It is noteworthy that the Arab National Hospital (Baptist) provides health care to the residents of the Gaza Strip, and is affiliated with the Anglican Episcopal Church in Jerusalem, and was founded at the end of the 19th century AD by the mission of England, and provides its services to the oldest densely populated neighborhoods of Gaza such as Shujaiya and Zeitoun.
False security
The next morning (Sunday), a call was received by the medical director condemning the hospital's continued operation, and not evacuating patients and the medical team despite the warning of shelling the previous day, "which indicates the determination of the occupation army to bomb this hospital" and remove it from work even if those who sought refuge in it were bombed.
The medical administration resorted to the bishop and the Red Cross, and even the US embassy was contacted, and the decision was that the hospital would not be harmed, and therefore continued to provide its services.
In parallel with these events, there were multiple warnings from the occupation army to bomb some neighborhoods of Gaza, which are located in the same residential block of the hospital, which made the people flee to its yards as it is the safest place, and the occupation soldiers cannot think of beating it, especially after talking about not being bombed.
Day of Tragedy
But what happened on the day of the disaster is beyond description, and what Dr. Naim narrates from inside the hospital indicates the magnitude of the tragedy suffered by the residents of the neighborhoods who took refuge in the yard of the Baptist Hospital, and this was a shock to them, "We did not think for a moment that there would be a bombing on the hospital in such a barbaric way."
Dr. Naim was surprised by the sound of the explosion on the evening of October 17, and for a moment he was confused between a previous sense of security inside the hospital and the reality of the explosion, which scattered with it every sense that the occupation is reluctant to do every crime.
As for the facts, they were greater than the shock, as the hospital doctors were surprised by the entry of the wounded in the operating rooms, and chaos pervaded everything, and it did not take long until it became clear the size of the tragedy that hit people inside and outside the hospital, the remains of the victims are scattered, the bodies of the martyrs fill the place, and the injuries of the victims mixed with blood bleeding on the ground, and the quality of the wounds is unprecedented, according to Naim.
Qualitative weapon
The head of the orthopedic department at the Baptist Hospital says, "The wounds sustained by the victims are cut wounds, and indicate that the bomb used is of a special type," which is intended to kill the largest number of individuals, and "I saw the wounds and they were as if there were knives that exploded in the crowd and cut their bodies and limbs," and this indicates that this shell specializes in such injuries.
"Yesterday morning (Wednesday) we found the body of a child on one of the roofs of the hospital, and in the evening we found the body of another child in the church inside the hospital, and we found children's heads on top of the buildings," he said.
The tragedy of Dr. Naim and his colleagues does not stop at its direct dimensions as residents of Gaza City and are bombed with it, but takes on other humanitarian dimensions, he says, "The massacre that occurred has not been seen in our lives like it, and we will not forget it, because some of the sons and spouses of the families of the hospital staff are inside it, and we at the moment of the event were not only displaced from outside the hospital, but our families were also inside in search of safety, so our feelings were scattered between our humanitarian duty to save people, and our feelings and emotions. towards our people, among whom there may be martyrs and wounded."
The head of the orthopedic department concludes that Israel committed one of the most heinous massacres in the besieged enclave, targeting the Baptist Hospital, killing more than 500 Palestinians, most of them women and children who took refuge in the hospital from Israeli raids.