text: (CNN) President Barack Obama has personally apologized. But he didn't go far enough, according to Doctors Without Borders, the aid group whose hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz was hit by a deadly U.S. airstrike. 
   
   The charity group -- which is also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, and provides medical care in some of the world's most dangerous places -- is calling the strike an "attack on the Geneva Conventions" and urging an independent investigation by a never-before-used international commission. 
   
   The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission has been in existence since 1991. It requires a request by one of the 76 nations that have signed on to it for it to begin its work. Its job is to investigate whether international humanitarian law has been violated. 
   
   "Governments up to now have been too polite or afraid to set a precedent," Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders, said Wednesday. "The tool exists, and it is time it is activated." 
   
   On Wednesday morning, Obama called and apologized directly to Liu. In a White House statement on that conversation, he highlighted a U.S. military investigation into the strike and pledged full support to a joint NATO and Afghan government probe. 
   
   But there was no mention of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission. 
   
   "President Obama expressed regret over the tragic incident and offered his thoughts and prayers on behalf of the American people to the victims, their families, and loved ones," the White House statement said. 
   
   "Acknowledging the great respect he has for the important and lifesaving work that MSF does for vulnerable communities in Afghanistan and around the world, the President assured Liu of his expectation that the Department of Defense investigation currently underway would provide a transparent, thorough and objective accounting of the facts and circumstances of the incident." 
   
   The Doctors Without Borders chief acknowledged Obama's apology, but doesn't want him to stop there. She pushed for the United States to allow an international investigation. 
   
   "We reiterate our (request) that the U.S. government consent to an independent investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened, and why it happened," Liu said. 
   
   For charity, 'the biggest loss of life ... in an airstrike' 
   
   The attack in the embattled city Saturday killed 12 medical staff members and at least 10 patients, three of them children. It was "the biggest loss of life for our organization in an airstrike," Liu said. 
   
   'If we let this go, we are basically giving blank check to any countries at war' says #MSF Int'l Prez @JoanneLiu_MSF pic.twitter.com/p3YDpUepbq — MSF East Africa (@MSFNairobi) October 7, 2015 
   
   Another 37 people were wounded, according to the global charity group, which works in conflict zones to help victims of war and other tragedies. 
   
   Gen. John Campbell, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has said the hospital was hit accidentally during an American airstrike. The Pentagon is carrying out an investigation, as are NATO and Afghanistan. 
   
   "If errors were committed, we will acknowledge them," Campbell said. "We will hold those responsible accountable, and we will take steps to ensure mistakes are not repeated." 
   
   Doctors Without Borders said it wants a full and transparent investigation by an independent agency. 
   
   "Their description of the attack keeps changing -- from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government," the group said. 
   
   What the U.S. said and when Saturday, 3 October -- Col. Brian Tribus, spokesman for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan "U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), Oct 3, against individuals threatening the force. The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility. This incident is under investigation." Sunday, 4 October -- Gen. John Campbell, U.S. military chief in Afghanistan "U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), Oct 3, against insurgents who were directly firing upon U.S. service members advising and assisting Afghan Security Forces in the city of Kunduz. The strike was conducted in the vicinity of a Doctors Without Borders medical facility." Monday, 5 October -- Gen. John Campbell, U.S. military chief in Afghanistan "We have now learned that on October 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. forces. An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. This is different from the initial reports, which indicated that U.S. forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf." Tuesday, 6 October -- Gen. John Campbell to the Senate committee "On Saturday morning our forces provided close air support to Afghan forces at their request. To be clear the decision to provide aerial fires was a U.S. decision, made within the U.S. chain of command. A hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility ... I assure you that the investigation will be thorough, objective and transparent." 
   
   'Today, we say, 'Enough'' 
   
   The United States has changed its account of what brought on the airstrike. 
   
   First, U.S. officials said that initial reports indicated the airstrike was called to protect U.S. forces. Then it said Afghan forces called for the air support because the Afghans were taking fire. 
   
   "Today, we say, 'Enough,' " Liu said. 
   
   "Today we are fighting back for the respect of the Geneva Conventions. As doctors, we are fighting back for the sake of our patients." 
   
   It's an open question as to whether the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission could initiate an inquiry. The panel's website says it requires the consent of the parties involved, and neither the United States nor Afghanistan recognizes the commission. 
   
   Jason Cone, the U.S. executive director for Doctors Without Borders, called on one of the 76 nations that recognize the panel to press the issue on the charity's behalf, though none of the 76 had stepped forward as of midday Wednesday. He said the changing U.S. accounts of the strikes underscore the need for an independent inquiry. 
   
   Cone paid tribute to the doctors who he said carried on treating the wounded while watching their colleagues die and while the hospital burned. 
   
   "In Kunduz, our patients burned in their beds, our doctors' nurses and other staff were killed as they worked, our colleagues had to operate on each other. One of our doctors died on an improvised operating table, an office desk, while his colleagues tried to save his life," Cone said. 
   
   A balance between humanity and military necessity 
   
   Photos: Doctors Without Borders hospital attacked in Afghanistan Photos: Doctors Without Borders hospital attacked in Afghanistan Flames are visible inside a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, after a U.S. airstrike on Saturday, October 3. At least 30 people died in the attack, the charity said in its internal review of the strike released Thursday, November 5. The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan has said the hospital was hit accidentally. Hide Caption 1 of 5 Photos: Doctors Without Borders hospital attacked in Afghanistan Doctors Without Borders said it had emailed the GPS coordinates of its main hospital and administration office building at the Kunduz center before the airstrike. The U.S. commander said airstrikes were called after Afghan troops advised they were "taking fire from enemy positions." 
   
   Hide Caption 2 of 5 Photos: Doctors Without Borders hospital attacked in Afghanistan Doctors Without Borders is asking for an indepedent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission. President Barack Obama has apologized to the charity group for the attack. Hide Caption 3 of 5 Photos: Doctors Without Borders hospital attacked in Afghanistan The attacks came as fighting intensified between Afghan government forces -- supported by U.S. air power and military advisers -- and the Taliban, which invaded Kunduz in late September. Hide Caption 4 of 5 Photos: Doctors Without Borders hospital attacked in Afghanistan "We were running a hospital treating patients, including wounded combatants from both sides -- this was not a 'Taliban base,' " said Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders or Médecins Sans Frontières, upon release of the group's internal review of the attack. Hide Caption 5 of 5 
   
   In general terms, a war crime may be committed when there is an attack on a civilian population during an armed conflict, said Steven Kay, a lawyer who defended Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta against charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, 
   
   There is an extensive body of law that regulates military action during conflict. 
   
   The aim, said Anthony Dworkin, a human rights expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, is to draw a balance between what armed forces are justified to do out of military necessity -- which includes causing collateral damage to civilians -- and the principles of humanity. 
   
   "Hospitals enjoy a special protected status under international humanitarian law. So, to attack a hospital or medical facility, whether it is a civilian or military installation, is a crime," Kay said. 
   
   Saturday wasn't the first time Doctors Without Borders has complained about military action on the Kunduz hospital. 
   
   In July, the aid group condemned what it called a "violent incursion by armed members of Afghan Special Forces." The troops allegedly entered the hospital -- which, according to MSF, "has a strict no weapons policy" like its other facilities -- and "physically assaulted three MSF staff members (and arrested) three patients." Those patients were released after an hour. 
   
   "Since it opened in 2011, Kunduz Trauma Center has been a place where all patients can receive free medical and surgical care safely," MSF's Director of Operations Dr. Bart Janssens said at the time. "This serious event puts at risk the lives of thousands of people who rely on the center for urgent care." ||||| President Barack Obama has apologized to Doctors Without Borders for the U.S. bombing of the international medical charity's hospital that killed 22 people last weekend in Kunduz, Afghanistan. 
   
   White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama called the medical group's president, Dr. Joanne Liu, to "apologize and express condolences." 
   
   "In this case, there was a mistake and it's one that the U.S. owns up to," Earnest said. He said Obama "is very eager to get to the bottom of what exactly occurred." 
   
   In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Liu acknowledged receiving Obama's call, but repeated her earlier demand for an independent panel to conduct an investigation under the Geneva Conventions, "to establish what happened in Kunduz, how it happened and why it happened." 
   
   The Geneva Conventions are a set of international treaties and protocols regulating the conduct of armed conflict and aim to protect people not taking part in hostilities and those who are no longer doing so. 
   
   Taliban insurgents have taken parts of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, while the provinces of Nangarhar and Paktika suffered attacks from the Islamic State over the weekend. 
   
   Hours before her conversation with President Obama, Liu said the organization, known by its French acronym MSF, cannot rely on the internal probes being conducted by the U.S., Afghanistan and NATO. 
   
   MSF has suggested that the bombing could be considered a war crime, but White House spokesman Earnest said "no one has offered any evidence that it's anything but a terrible, tragic mistake." 
   
   Obama also called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to voice his condolences for the innocent loss of lives in the aerial bombardment Saturday, the spokesman said, and to commend Afghan forces for their bravery in the fight to control the northern Afghan city in clashes with Taliban insurgents. 
   
   Associated Press video footage of the burned-out hospital compound in the east of Kunduz city. 
   
   Meanwhile, U.S. officials are probing whether the military exceeded its authority for use of force in Afghanistan in launching the airstrike. 
   
   The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army General John Campbell, says the United States is taking the blame for carrying out Saturday's raid after Afghan forces requested it to attack Taliban insurgents it believed were firing from inside the medical facility. But the question remains whether the U.S. should have agreed to the attack. 
   
   FILE - Afghan security forces inspect the site of a U.S. airstrike in Kunduz city, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Oct. 2, 2015. 
   
   When Obama ended American ground combat operations in Afghanistan last year, he said that the residual force of 9,800 U.S. troops remaining there should focus on training and advising Afghan troops. He limited the use of force to three circumstances: the defense of U.S. and allied troops, support for missions targeting remnants of al-Qaida insurgents in Afghanistan, and assisting Afghan troops facing mass casualties in extreme situations. 
   
   It is not clear whether the U.S. bombing of the hospital met any of those criteria. 
   
   Campbell told a congressional committee Tuesday the hospital was "mistakenly struck" and the United States "would never intentionally target a protected medical facility." 
   
   He said he has ordered American forces in Afghanistan to be retrained on their use of force. ||||| WASHINGTON/GENEVA U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday apologized to Medecins Sans Frontieres for the deadly bombing of its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, while the medical charity pressed its demand for an international commission to investigate what it calls a war crime. 
   
   MSF said that an independent humanitarian commission created under the Geneva Conventions in 1991 should be activated for the first time to handle the inquiry. Three investigations have already begun into Saturday's air strike that killed 22 people, including 12 MSF staff. 
   
   Obama telephoned MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, International President Joanne Liu to apologize and express his condolences, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. Asked whether Obama offered some explanation to Liu, Earnest said no. 
   
   "He merely offered his heartfelt apology" and a commitment to find out what went wrong, he said. 
   
   Earnest said Obama told Liu that a U.S. investigation would "provide a transparent, thorough and objective accounting of the facts and circumstances of the incident. And that, if necessary, the president would implement changes to make tragedies like this one less likely to occur in the future." 
   
   MSF said that the commission's inquiry would gather facts and evidence from the United States, NATO and Afghanistan, as well as testimony from MSF staff and patients who survived. 
   
   Only then would MSF consider whether to bring criminal charges for loss of life and partial destruction of its trauma hospital, which has left tens of thousands of Afghans without access to health care, it said. 
   
   "If we let this go, as if it was a non-event, we are basically giving a blank check to any countries who are at war," Liu told a news briefing in Geneva. "If we don't safeguard that medical space for us to do our activities, then it is impossible to work in other contexts like Syria, South Sudan, like Yemen." 
   
   Neither the United States nor Afghanistan were signatories to the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) but Jason Cone, executive director of MSF in the United States, called on Obama to consent to the commission. 
   
   "Doing so will send a powerful signal of the U.S. government's commitment to and respect for international humanitarian law under rules of war," Cone said at a news conference in New York. 
   
   The White House said Obama had also called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to express his condolences. The United States military took responsibility on Tuesday for the air strike, calling it a mistake. 
   
   Earnest said "there is no evidence that ... I've seen or that anybody else has presented that indicate that this was anything other than a terrible, tragic accident." 
   
   U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter, speaking to reporters in Rome on Wednesday, said the investigation would "hold accountable anyone responsible for conduct that was improper." 
   
   HOSPITAL CHAOS 
   
   Liu spoke of the chaos as the bombs fell for an hour. 
   
   "Our patients burned in their beds, MSF doctors nurses, and other staff were killed as they worked. Our colleagues had to operate on each other," she said. 
   
   The Afghan Ministry of Defence said on Sunday Taliban fighters had attacked the hospital and were using the building "as a human shield", which the medical group denied, while pointing out it would be a war crime not to treat the wounded. 
   
   Liu said an impartial commission, which can be set up at the request of a single state under the Geneva Conventions that establish international standards for conducting war, was needed due to "inconsistencies between the U.S. and Afghan accounts". 
   
   The United Nations has condemned the attack but said it would wait for the results of U.S., NATO and Afghan investigations before deciding whether to support an independent probe. 
   
   MSF's hospital in Kunduz had treated nearly 400 people, including some Taliban, wounded in heavy fighting in the days before the attack, MSF's Bruno Jochum said. 
   
   Its GSP coordinates had been shared with all authorities. 
   
   "We had eight ICU (intensive care unit) beds with ventilators, this was high-tech medicine. This was not the little bush hospital. You could not miss it," Liu said. 
   
   "Today we say enough, even war has rules." 
   
   (Additional reporting Steve Scherer in Rome, Doina Chiacu and Lisa Lambert in Washington and Daniel Bases in New York; Editing by David Storey and Grant McCool)
target: – Doctors Without Borders isn't letting the deadly airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan slip quietly away. The group Wednesday called the US bombing that killed 12 of its staffers and 10 patients "an attack on the Geneva Conventions" and called for an unprecedented independent investigation, reports Voice of America. "Even war has rules," said its president, Joanne Liu. Her group wants the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission—a panel set up under the Conventions in 1991 but never used—to launch an inquiry. It takes the request of one its 76 signatory nations to launch one, reports CNN. "Governments up to now have been too polite or afraid to set a precedent," said Liu. "The tool exists, and it is time it is activated." The group has called the airstrike a war crime, and Liu says internal investigations by the US or Afghanistan aren't enough. “If we let this go as if it were a nonevent, we are basically giving a blank check to any countries at war." Only when the investigation is complete will the group decide whether to pursue criminal charges, reports Reuters. (On Tuesday, a US general called the airstrike a mistake.)