The Israeli ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlick, has said the targeting of a hospital in Gaza is a war crime, but denied that Israel had been responsible for the attack.
Over 500 people were killed on Tuesday after a hospital in Gaza City was hit by during an airstrike. Palestinian militant group Hamas accused Israel of launching the attack, while Israel claims the bombing was the result of a misfired rocket from Palestinian militants.
“There is war crime in targeting hospitals,” Ms Erlick told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
“Every strike that we plan, we make sure that there are minimum civilian casualties.
“Under international law, if you are being fired from a centre of population, from a hospital, according to international law, you are allowed to hit [it].”
Ms Erlick claimed footage from different outlets, “even Arab media outlets that have nothing to do with Israel and no one will suspect of supporting Israel”, show there was “a barrage of rockets aimed at Israel”.
“All of our citizens were in shelters because there were different rockets. And you can see the barrage on that footage and you can see that failed launch.
“You hear an IDF (Israel Defence Forces) spokesperson just released a conversation stating one of the different activists [saying] that they were trying to fire rockets from behind the hospital in a cemetery, and they're talking about the failed launch and the whole thing that happened.”
Blame
Ms Erlick said the deaths at the hospital are terrible news, “but I can't get away from the question of responsibility”.
“Right now we're talking about it, and not putting the blame on Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. I think that is morally wrong.”
“And also for the media, it's wrong not to put the blame, it's just saying or connecting it to Israeli requests to evacuate northern Gaza, [which] has nothing to do with it. There is clear footage and images that this was a failed launch of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” she claimed.
Asked if Israel would accept independent verification on the issue of responsibility for the attack, Ms Erlick said the scene was within Gaza and that Hamas was already denying access to the area.
“We can only assume that they're trying to cover whatever they found there or trying to cover their tracks,” she said.
However, she claimed in the videos “you can see clearly what happened”.
Despite Israel blocking the movement of water, food and medical supplies into Gaza since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, as well as cutting off electricity to the area, Ms Erlick claimed Israel is not denying humanitarian aid to Gaza
“There is a lot more equipment, fuel, water that Hamas holds, and nobody is talking about that. They're depriving their own population,” she claimed.
“We are working with international partners, and that is Egypt and the US, in order to see how we can bring in humanitarian aid.
“Unfortunately, time and time again in the past, we've seen that Hamas abuses that help, that aid that we supply to the Gaza Strip. They abuse not just the equipment but even the trucks themselves in order to smuggle out their people.
“Can anyone guarantee that they do not smuggle out our hostages that are now in Gaza? There are a lot of components right now within all of this horrible situation. We care, and we're worried about the Palestinian population in Gaza, so we need help in order to make sure that Hamas doesn't keep on abusing them,” Ms Erlick said.
'Belfast moment'
Meanwhile, a former adviser to both the Israeli and Palestinian governments Dr Gershon Baskin said the current situation in Gaza was “a Belfast moment for the Middle East”.
Speaking to the same programme, the peace activists said: “There is a time when we are so traumatised by the events around us that we stand up – civilians, citizens, not our governments, because they're blind and incapable of doing this – but citizens stand up and say no more. Enough.
“We want to change what we've been doing for decades, maybe in Belfast for hundreds of years, and start a genuine peace process, and that's what we need to see happen in Europe.”
He added: “I emphasise that with our governments – our governments are responsible for bringing us to where we are.
“Our government in Israel is responsible for believing and convincing our people for so many decades that we can occupy [Gaza] with people and expect to live in peace, or keep two and a half million people in Gaza in an open-air prison and expect to have quiet.
“That's the conceptual failure that our leadership in Israel and our people have been living for too long.”
Dr Baskin said, on the Palestinian side: “They need to come to the realisation that the Jewish people are here living in their ancient homeland”.
However, he said, “every person living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea must have the same right to the same rights”.
“That's the basis for beginning to start a new future with new dreams and new hopes and new realities and new leaders who have to emerge. I don't know who they are, but they have to stand up and come front and centre when this catastrophe is finished,” he added.
'Almost inevitable'
The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza was “almost inevitable”, Dr Baskin said adding: “It could have been predicted in advance. This always happens in war. It's never precise.”
On the airstrike which hit the hospital in Gaza City, he noted: “We don't know who did it, but we can suspect the Israeli claim was that it was an Islamic Jihad missile.
“They have shown aerial photographs and videos showing that it was, but the question has to be asked. We haven't seen the firepower of the explosion of the kind that happened in the hospital yesterday from Hamas and Jihad rockets. Maybe it was Israel.
“In any event, regardless of who it was, it needs to be condemned. It's a war crime. Compassion needs to be expressed by us all.
“Innocent victims have been massacred in this war already on both sides of the border, and this just brings home to all of us how we have to end this as soon as possible with as few casualties of innocent people as possible.”
Dr Baskin added that one of his friends was among the hostages taken by Hamas in the attack on October 7th. “This is a human tragedy as well, in that I pity the families who are waiting to get information and to think about how their loved ones might be returned.”
However, Dr Baskin said he had communicated “a message of compassion” directly with Hamas over the bombing of the hospital.
“I think even if we're enemies, and we are clearly enemies, that we still have to show our humanity and express compassion in the view of this horrific tragedy of so many innocent people in Gaza last night,” he said.
