“Israel” Likely Dropped 1,000-pound Bomb on UK Doctors in Gaza

By Staff, agencies

A UN investigation has found “Israeli” forces most likely used a 1,000-pound bomb when they hit a compound housing British doctors working for UK and US organizations in southern Gaza earlier this month.

UN investigators said the early morning strike on 18 January probably involved an MK83 bomb guided by a GBU32, a type of kit that turns “free fall” bombs into precision-guided missiles.

“The new revelations will increase scrutiny of US and UK arms sales to ‘Israel’ as it is possible weapons or components made in both countries were used in the attack,” arms control experts and lawyers said.

The UK’s Medical Aid for Palestine [MAP] and the US-based International Rescue Committee [IRC], headed by former UK foreign secretary David Miliband, have condemned the attack which injured several of their team members and a bodyguard, and severely damaged the residential compound.

They are now seeking further answers after the bombing forced the suspension of the life-saving medical work their team was providing to Nasser Hospital, which ran out of food, an aesthetics and painkillers a week ago, and is currently besieged by Israeli forces.

“We need to know the facts as to why this air strike took place and receive assurances of non-recurrence,” the organizations said in a joint statement.

“We further demand that our colleagues in Gaza, their families and all civilians and humanitarian workers in Gaza be protected from further attack.”

MP Brendan O'Hara, the Scottish National Party's foreign affairs spokesperson, told MEE that under the government's own criteria, weapons may not be exported "where there is a clear risk they might be used in violations of international law".

O'Hara said last week's interim ruling by the International Court of Justice in the Gaza genocide case against ‘Israel’ should mean "an immediate embargo on arms sales to ‘Israel’".

The US has sold MK83s - the bomb likely used in the attack - to “Israel” and, at least up until December, reportedly rushed transfers of precision-guided munitions, the kit believed to have been used in the attack, citing a little-known Congressional pro