Israeli warplanes targeted the hospital's reception building with two missiles, almost completely destroying it. The reception and emergency departments, laboratory, and pharmacy sustained damage, all of which caught fire.
Medical sources reported that the bombing completely put the hospital out of service, preventing it from receiving patients wounded by the ongoing Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
The hospital's medical director, Dr. Fadl Naim, said he had tried to contact international organizations to provide relief to the hospital before it was bombed, but to no avail. He added, " The occupation dared to attack hospitals because the world failed us, which encouraged them to destroy and bomb them repeatedly."
According to eyewitnesses, the Israeli occupation army had threatened to bomb the hospital before carrying out the attack, forcing dozens of wounded and sick people to leave and sleep on the surrounding streets in the bitterly cold weather.
On Sunday, the director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, described Israel's targeting of the city's Baptist Hospital as a "humanitarian crime in the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people ." He stressed that "the occupation's removal of the Baptist Hospital from service sends a message that there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip."
Dozens of patients and wounded leave the Baptist Hospital due to the Israeli bombing.
In a related development, a number of civilians have been killed and injured since dawn on Sunday as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombardment of various parts of the Gaza Strip. Medical sources reported that a woman was killed by gunfire from an Israeli drone in the Jabalia al-Balad area in the northern Gaza Strip.
In the latest massacre perpetrated by the occupation, nine people were killed and others were injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the civilian car they were traveling in west of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Palestinian media reported that Israeli warplanes directly targeted the car with more than one missile, noting that this raid was preceded by a series of Israeli raids on the western areas of Deir al-Balah and the western areas of Khan Yunis.
In an attack by Israeli warplanes on Saad bin Moaz schools east of Al-Tuffah neighborhood and Al-Dahyan schools in the Sheikh Radwan area, both of which were sheltering displaced persons, a number of civilians were killed and others were injured.
An airstrike was also recorded on the coastal Al-Mawasi area with several missiles before dawn on Sunday, targeting a tent housing displaced persons and an inhabited house, resulting in deaths and injuries. Medical sources reported the death of Mohammed al-Darbashi, director of the police station west of Khan Yunis, as a result of an Israeli airstrike that targeted his home in the city's western camp.
For its part, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, announced its capture of two Israeli Quadcopter drones while they were carrying out intelligence missions in the central Gaza Strip.
For its part, the government media office in Gaza said, "The Israeli occupation committed a new horrific crime by bombing the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, which houses hundreds of patients, wounded, and medical staff."
In a statement, he noted that this targeting is not the first. The occupation previously committed a horrific massacre inside the same hospital during its ongoing war of extermination, claiming the lives of hundreds of civilians. Today, the occupation is repeating the same bloody scene, in blatant defiance of international and humanitarian laws that prohibit the targeting of health facilities and medical personnel.
The office added that the occupation deliberately destroyed 34 hospitals, putting them out of service, as part of a systematic plan to destroy what remains of the health system in Gaza. It also targeted dozens of health centers and institutions, in clear violation of all international conventions and the Geneva Conventions.
The media office condemned this "heinous, dirty crime," holding the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and countries involved in the genocide, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, fully responsible. It called on the international community, United Nations agencies, and human rights and humanitarian organizations to condemn the crime, take urgent action to put an end to this organized terrorism, and work immediately to protect the remaining health facilities in the Gaza Strip.
For its part, Hamas said that the bombing of the hospital, the destruction of its departments, and the displacement of patients and the wounded constitute "a new war crime committed by the fascist occupation army." In a statement, the movement affirmed that this brutal crime once again reflects the nature of this criminal entity, which violates all laws and norms and operates with American cover and complicity, amid a comprehensive failure of international accountability mechanisms.
The movement questioned the silence of the international community and its legal institutions, led by the Security Council, regarding the unprecedented crimes that include the bombing of hospitals, the perpetration of massacres inside them, and the abuse and displacement of patients. It also held the US administration fully responsible for the occupation's crime at the Baptist Hospital, calling on the international community, the United Nations, and Arab and Islamic countries to take immediate action to halt these grave violations and end the ongoing genocide.
The movement affirmed that Arab and Islamic peoples, and all free people around the world, face a historic responsibility to halt this criminal oppression of the Palestinian people in Gaza by escalating popular mobilization and exerting all possible pressure to halt the massacres.
In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates on Sunday, Palestine considered the Israeli army's bombing of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City to be "the most heinous form of genocide and displacement," denouncing the "international community's inaction." The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said, "The occupation's destruction of the Baptist Hospital is the most heinous form of genocide and displacement, amidst suspicious international inaction."
She added, "Targeting hospitals, health centers, and medical personnel is the most heinous form of genocide and a blatant disregard for the international community and humanitarian principles and laws." She emphasized that this targeting "falls within the framework of a systematic Israeli policy to complete the destruction of all aspects of life in the Gaza Strip and transform it into a land unfit for human habitation, as a prelude to forcing citizens to emigrate by military force."
It's worth noting that the Baptist Hospital witnessed one of the most horrific massacres during the current war of extermination, when the occupation bombed it on October 17, 2023, while hundreds of displaced people and patients were inside. The bombing resulted in the deaths of 471 Palestinians and the injury of hundreds more. At the time, the bombing sparked a wave of global outrage, with accusations of complicity against the international community and calls for international protection for the Palestinian people.
The Baptist Hospital is located north of the Zeitoun neighborhood in southern Gaza City. It is run by the Anglican Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and is one of the city's oldest hospitals, having been founded in 1882. The hospital has become one of the most important medical centers in northern Gaza following the extensive destruction of the Al-Shifa Complex, the Indonesian Hospital, and Kamal Adwan Hospital due to the ongoing Israeli aggression, which has lasted for more than 18 months.