Britain's 1st MP of Palestinian descent ‘heartbroken' after Israeli strike on Gaza hospital

By Aysu Biçer

LONDON (AA) - Layla Moran, the UK’s first MP of Palestinian descent, said Wednesday she is heartbroken after seeing what happened to the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in central Gaza.

"I've been speaking to the wider family yet no word for the latest today for the extended family that are in Gaza. They're in a different part of Gaza City. But, of course, I mean, we are absolutely heartbroken,” Moran told LBC News.

"We echo words of condemnation from agencies like World Health Organization (WHO), and we do need to get to the bottom of what's happened here. It really matters," she said.

Moran highlighted the vulnerability of patients in the hospital, emphasizing that many were already injured, sick or reliant on ventilators.

The hospitals, including neonatal units and care for children in critical conditions, making any form of evacuation an extremely challenging proposition.

"It's one of the reasons why Ed Davey, my liberal Democrat leader, raise the forced evacuation of hospitals in Gaza as being something that was deeply concerning when we were able to question the prime minister on this earlier this week," she said.

"These are extremely vulnerable people and moving them is not an option. It would have been difficult to do in this country with all of our technology and good roads. To do it in those circumstances was tantamount to a death sentence," Moran said, citing dire warnings by the World Health Organization.

At least 471 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza late Tuesday, a Health Ministry spokesman told Anadolu.

Israel has denied responsibility for the strike.

Footage on social media showed bodies scattered across the hospital grounds.

Thousands of Palestinians were at the hospital when the building came under bombardment, according to an Anadolu reporter.