The Yemeni Cancer Control Fund, a government body tasked with overseeing the country’s healthcare system, agreed, alleging that they were part of what it called:
A systematic American policy that has targeted the Yemeni people for years through bombings and a suffocating blockade, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis and spreading deadly diseases, including cancer, which has surged due to the use of internationally banned weapons since 2015.”
The newly built Al Rasool Al-Azam Hospital was the centerpiece of the region’s healthcare network. Costing over $7.5 million.
The destruction of the Al Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Center was far from a unique occurrence. In fact, the attack carries on an extremely long and well-documented tradition of the United States targeting hospitals.
In 2015, the U.S. Air Force carried out a bombing campaign against a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The trauma center, one of the newest, largest, and most recognizable buildings in the city, was deliberately targeted; Doctors Without Borders had already supplied the military with its precise coordinates.
An internal inquiry revealed that the airmen aboard the AC-130 gunship that carried out the operation pushed back against their superiors, questioning the strike’s legality. However, they were overruled and ordered to bomb the hospital regardless of their concerns. A Doctors Without Borders report concluded that the U.S. knew where the hospital was and that it did not hide any Taliban fighters and targeted it anyway. At least 42 people are known to have been killed in the incident.