Archbishop Hosam has responsed in the strongest terms to the attack on the Al Ahli Hospital in the early hours of Palm Sunday.
The stement reads as follows.
The Diocese of Jerusalem condemns in the strongest terms today’s missile attacks on the Ahli Arab Hospital, an institution run by the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. The twin strikes demolished the two-storey Genetic Laboratory and damaged the Pharmacy and the Emergency Department buildings. It also resulted in other collateral damage to the surrounding buildings, including the church building of St. Philip’s.
A mere twenty minutes prior to the attack, the Israeli army ordered all patients, employees, and displaced people to immediately evacuate the hospital premises prior to its bombing. We thank God that there were no injuries or deaths as a result of the bombing. However, one child who previously suffered a head-injury tragically died as a result of the rushed evacuation process.
The Diocese of Jerusalem is appalled at the bombing of the hospital now for the fifth time since the beginning of the war in 2023—and this time on the morning of Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. We call upon all governments and people of goodwill to intervene to stop all kinds of attacks on medical and humanitarian institutions. We pray and call for the end of this horrific war and the suffering of so many
Bishop Sean Semple, bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, who is on a solidarity visit to Jerusalem said,
We are standing in prayerful solidarity with our sister Diocese of Jerusalem, and in condemnation of the latest attack on the Anglican Ahli Arab Hospital.
A statement from the IDF in the Jerusalem Post sought to justify the attack and claimed that the Hospital contained a command and control center for Hamas, and that the center was reportedly used to plan and coordinate attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. Similar claims have repeatedly been dismissed by the Archbishop.
The Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson, the Church of Ireland's Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough, has issued the following statement after the further attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital. The hospital is supported by the Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough through their relationship with the Diocese of Jerusalem:
As Christian people worldwide mark the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday we recollect with thanksgiving how he gathered to himself a new community of the despised and the rejected.
He himself became despised and rejected – a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
We walk in solidarity and in sadness with the brave souls – staff and patients – who have kept Al Ahli Hospital functioning against the odds for so so long.
I share their outrage, having experienced their selfless work and worshipped with them in their hospital chapel, at the destruction and desecration of the hospital – a place of care and healing for all in need.
I appeal for a cessation of violence and warfare in Israel-Palestine and particularly in Gaza.
Canon Don Binder, the Archbishop's Chaplain earlier posted pictures of the devastation. He said
Not only is Ahli Gaza's oldest hospital, dating to the 1800s, but it is also the only Christian hospital in the Gaza Strip.
An attack on the hospital on Palm Sunday is an affront to all Christians and against all rules of civilized behavior.