[News] Gilberto Aranda, international analyst: “The attack on the Gaza hospital is going to fuel anger”

[FNX Magokiler]

The academic from the University of Chile, Gilberto Aranda, and a specialist in the Middle East, is “dismayed” by the more than 500 civilians killed after the attack on a hospital in Gaza, where there are people with reduced or no mobility. In an interview with El Mostrador, he points out that a potential escalation, which is not necessarily going to happen, will be determined by what happens on the Northern Front of the crisis, between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Force, and whether Iran accepts the challenge and take part if Hezbollah becomes too compromised. “And what could happen on another level in the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel,” he says.

The academic from the University of Chile, and international analyst Gilberto Aranda - a specialist in the Arab world and author of the book Middle East: the eternal crossroads, together with the diplomat and former ambassador to Jordan, Luis Palma - says “he is dismayed” by the attack on the Ahli Arab hospital in the Gaza Strip yesterday afternoon, which left nearly 500 civilians dead. Many of whom had arrived at the site fleeing from towns near the border with Israel.

Aranda, who has researched Middle East issues for 20 years, believes it is “not possible, but not ruled out” that the missile attack on the hospital was a mistake by Hamas. This is because Hamas considers that the po[CENSORED]tion inside Gaza is under its protection and the hospital is in Gaza.”

 

 

“The point is that there are approximately 500 civilians who spent the last nights there. So, first, you have to prove the authorship. It seems to me that everything points towards one of the parties. If so, they are violating all the laws, the most basic conventions of Geneva International Humanitarian Law. That is, if a place that is under protection would have a basis for a future accusation against Israel,” says Aranda.

-What is your analysis of what happened in the hospital?

-As you know, first there is the war, and then the media conflict arises. The Ahli Arab hospital was hit, that is a certain thing, but now there are versions about who fired the missile. In principle, it would be understood that the hospital was hit by Israeli bombing. And if so, having reached a hospital, which is basically made up of people who could not move towards the security zone and which has also revealed to be not as safe, but as vulnerable as the northern area. And it was known that there were hundreds of people who had come to spend the last nights after losing their homes, to take refuge in that hospital after losing their rooms, their homes, precisely because they thought it was unlikely that Israel would reach or bomb that hospital. place. This shows that the war is reaching edges beyond international humanitarian law and that the civilian po[CENSORED]tion is the affected one.

 

https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2023/10/17/gilberto-aranda-analista-internacional-el-ataque-al-hospital-de-gaza-va-a-alimentar-las-iras/