Although Israel continues to deny any responsibility for the deadly explosion on Tuesday (December 17, 2023) at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza that killed nearly 500 people, the tragedy has sparked a new wave of outrage and condemnation of the Israeli army entire East and North Africa.
“The situation is incredibly unstable and the images of suffering and destruction at Al-Ahli Hospital are unsettling the entire region,” Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, associate professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told DW.
According to Fuchs, some of the regional leaders’ reactions to the attack may have been strategic in nature. “Arab politicians who work closely with Western countries are under extreme pressure, which is why they immediately condemned the attack and blamed Israel,” he believes.
Egypt, for example, is under increasing international pressure to open its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip to allow the entry of aid and the escape of refugees. Immediately after the hospital explosion, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry blamed Israel for the attack, accusing the country of a “deliberate bombing of civilians.”
Days of air strikes
Israel has bombed the Gaza Strip as part of a siege that is a direct response to the attack by militants linked to the Hamas group, designated a terrorist organization by the EU, US, Germany and other governments, which killed around 1,400 people died. The militants also brought dozens of hostages to Gaza.
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, claims the hospital was destroyed in an attack by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). For their part, Israeli authorities claim that the explosion was caused by a rocket accidentally fired by the radical group Islamic Jihad in Gaza. But this organization, which works with Hamas, immediately denied any responsibility.
After explaining that he had reviewed the video and audio material presented by the Pentagon, US President Joe Biden said this Wednesday (10/18/2023) in Tel Aviv to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “From what I saw “It seems like the other side did it, not you.” However, Biden added that “a lot of people out there” weren’t sure what caused the explosion.
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A “heinous crime”
On Tuesday, Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, canceled a planned quadrilateral summit with Biden, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdulfatah al Sisi.
“The war is bringing the region to the brink,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in a statement broadcast on national television. “Jordan will continue to work with everyone so that it can achieve what is asked of it at this summit, which is to end the war, provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza and end this crisis,” Safadi said.
Abbas, for his part, spoke of a “cruel crime, a genocide” and blamed the countries that support Israel. While Abbas condemned the explosion, demonstrators in the West Bank called for his resignation at a protest rally in Ramallah.
Current opinion polls suggest Abbas would lose to Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatari political leader of Hamas, in elections now taking place. “In the last week it has become clear that the Palestinian Authority has become irrelevant,” Steven Höfner, head of the Ramallah office of the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation, told DW a few days ago.
Call for moderation
Despite the unrest in the region, Fuchs said there is cautious optimism that Tuesday’s tragedy could lead to the suspension of Israel’s upcoming ground offensive in Gaza, “or allow negotiations for a ceasefire and possibly the release of the hostages.”
Israel’s allies outside the region are also calling for a change of tactics. “It is useful to note that both EU officials and the Americans are now moving from unconditional support for Israel to calling for some restraint and avoiding further violence and possibly spillover of the conflict in the region,” said Cinzia Bianco, member guest the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Fuchs, for his part, predicts that the outrage will likely continue long after the fight is over. “There are many people, especially on social media, who say that even if there is a ceasefire now, they will not forget the events of the last few days and that the attack on the hospital is just the tip of the iceberg.” says Fuchs. .
(ms/ers)