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Netanyahu deletes Palestinian ‘children of darkness' tweet

Netanyahu deletes 'racist' tweet on Palestinian 'children of darkness' after hospital massacre
MENA
2 min read
18 October, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu deleted a tweet apparently referring to Palestinians as ‘children of darkness’ after an airstrike at a hospital killed 471 people.
Netanyahu appeared to be calling Palestinians 'children of darkness' [Getty]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday deleted a tweet in which he referenced Palestinians as "children of darkness" in the wake of a reported Israeli airstrike at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, which killed nearly 500 people and caused global outrage.

Prior to the strike, Netanyahu tweeted an extract from a speech he gave in the Israeli Knesset, in which he said Israel’s current war on Gaza was a "struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle".

The post went up on Netanyahu’s X account on Monday afternoon. It was deleted on Tuesday following the strike on the hospital.

Israel has fiercely and indiscriminately bombarded the Gaza Strip since 7 October, when Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,400 Israelis including civilians and soldiers.

Prior to the Al-Ahli Hospital strike, Israel had flattened entire districts of Gaza in its airstrikes and killed 3,478 Palestinians according to Gaza health officials, most of them women and children.

The Al-Ahli Hospital is run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and thousands of Palestinians were taking refuge there when the deadly strike hit.

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Israel had previously ordered the evacuation of the hospital but hospital officials said this would be impossible to carry out given the number of seriously ill patients there.

A World Health Organisation official called the attack "unprecedented in scale".

Palestinians in Gaza held Israel responsible for the strike but Israel has claimed that the strike was the result of a rocket accidentally fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Hamas.

Israel had bombed the same hospital a few days before however, after ordering its staff to evacuate, and no rocket fired by Hamas or the PIJ has ever caused this many casualties.