Attacks on Al Wafa hospital: When moral capacity is absent, what then?

by Julie Webb-Pullman

Four Israeli missiles smashed into Al Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital at 2am Friday, in what can only be described as a barbaric war crime. Israel calls it ‘roof knocking.’ It is usually the precursor to a major attack that destroys the building and all within it.

The 14 patients who remain in the facility are all high-dependency, and unable to be transferred elsewhere. Many are intubated, a quarter are comatose, most are fully or partially paralysed and unable to mobilise. They range in age from 13 years to over 80, and about half are in their 20’s and 30’s.

None of them are militants, resistance fighters, or terrorists. They are all, each and every one of them, civilians. Their injuries were sustained through illness (meningitis, stroke during childbirth) or accident (electrocution, drowning, traffic accident).

They cannot even lift a spoon, let alone a gun.

Yet they are the deliberate target of Israeli rockets and missiles, fired from drones and tanks. Read more here