Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital was opened in 1882 in al-Zaytun neighborhood south of Gaza City near the St. Philip the Evangelist Church, by English missionaries, led by Rev. Elliott. The hospital was destroyed during World War I in 1919 but rebuilt again that same year. The Baptist Mission took control of the management of the hospital after the British sought to close it at the end of the Mandate period[1].
In subsequent years, the hospital faced difficulties arising from a dispute between the Egyptian administration of Gaza and the Baptist Mission over the ownership of the hospital's land, after the Egyptian administration canceled the civil endowment law in Gaza. However, the hospital continued to provide its services even under the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip since 1967. In 1976, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) cut its aid to the hospital, in addition to stopping support for the nursing school that was affiliated with the hospital at the time, which led to a decline in its work and reduced its staff to 3 doctors and 28 nurses by 1977. At the end of the 1970s, the ownership of the hospital returned to the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, and it has continued to provide its services until the present[2].
At the beginning of the 2023 Israeli war of genocide, the hospital consisted of two buildings with eight and four floors. It had 116 medical staff and 80 beds.
Development
In 1967: A second floor was added to Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in 1967, which included an office for two physicians, plus three rooms dedicated to various therapeutic services, a laboratory which provided training services for students in order to certify them as laboratory technicians, and a physiotherapy unit, the first in the Gaza Strip[1].
In 2018: A second building was built for the hospital to provide ancillary diagnostic services.
The main targeting and assaults During the genocide
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- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
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- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
- World Health Organization in the occupied Palestinian territory, X platform, formerly Twitter.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
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- World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, X Platform, formerly Twitter.
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- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Report.
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