The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine unequivocally condemned the deliberate targeting and destruction of the Al-Ahli Arab (Baptist) Hospital—affiliated with the Anglican Church—in Gaza City by Israeli occupation forces. The attack, carried out on Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar, constitutes a grave violation of religious sanctity and fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
In an official statement issued by the Committee’s Head, Dr. Ramzi Khouri, member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, the targeting of the only Christian hospital in the Gaza Strip—established in the 19th century—was described as a direct insult to the Christians in Palestine and worldwide. The statement further denounced the attack as an act of aggression against a civilian medical institution that provided critical services to hundreds of patients and wounded individuals on a daily basis.
The statement confirmed that the Israeli airstrike struck both the emergency intensive care unit and the hospital’s pharmacy, resulting in the death of a 13-year-old child during an emergency evacuation, following prior injuries to the head. The Committee emphasized that this incident cannot be regarded as an isolated or accidental occurrence, but rather as part of a systematic and deliberate policy aimed at dismantling the health sector and other essential components of life in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Committee, this attack is one in a series of systematic assaults by the Israeli military, which has deliberately destroyed 34 hospitals in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the ongoing aggression. These actions form part of a broader policy of collective punishment that includes enforced starvation, denial of access to water and medical supplies, and the intentional collapse of health infrastructure—all in blatant breach of the Geneva Conventions and established norms of international humanitarian law.
The statement held the international community, and the United Nations Security Council in particular, fully responsible for the continued failure to ensure the protection of civilians, to halt the acts of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people, to guarantee sustained humanitarian access, and to facilitate immediate relief and reconstruction operations.
The Committee urged all churches and ecclesiastical councils worldwide, as well as humanitarian and religious institutions, to assume their moral responsibilities by breaking their silence, publicly condemning this grave violation, and taking concrete measures to protect what remains of Gaza’s humanitarian institutions. It also called for standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are enduring a systematic campaign of extermination.
The statement concluded by affirming that the international community’s silence regarding the bombing of a hospital devoted to saving lives—on a day of sacred religious observance—represents a deep moral failure and a permanent stain on the conscience of humanity
