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Israeli Strike on Gaza Hospital Kills at Least 6World
An overnight strike hit Nasser Hospital’s surgery unit in Khan Younis, killing six people including a doctor and a 13-year-old boy, Palestinian officials said.
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Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, was struck shortly after midnight on Wednesday in an Israeli attack that tore through its surgery unit, Palestinian officials said. At least six people were killed, among them a doctor and a 13-year-old boy.
The Gaza Civil Defense spokesman, Ezz Eddine Abu Sabha, said the strike hit the hospital complex in the dark of night and left charred debris scattered across the destroyed unit. The dead included 52-year-old Dr. Rizk Abu Shaira, he said, and a boy who had been due to undergo surgery. Forty people were wounded in the attack, including two doctors who are in critical condition.
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Footage filmed inside the hospital after the strike showed the scale of the damage, with ceilings collapsed, beds overturned and rubble covering the floor of the unit. The footage also showed two bombs, one of which failed to explode. A label on the unexploded bomb identified it as a US-manufactured GBU-39/B, a 250-pound bomb that has been supplied to Israel.
Patients caught inside the ward described waking to dust and broken glass. “I was asleep when suddenly I was covered with dust and glass,” said Atiya Abu Basir, an elderly patient at the hospital. “I couldn’t walk because I just had surgery.”
Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, director-general of Gaza’s Health Ministry, wrote on Facebook after the strike: “People of the world… where can the people of Gaza go? Tents flood, cliffs collapse onto children, and hospitals are bombed with people inside. There is no time for blankets – or tears – to dry.” He added: “Gaza does not ask the world to count its dead… It demands protection for those still alive.”
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had targeted the commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, Muhammad Abu Ismail, as well as “additional terrorists who were hiding inside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.” The IDF said he had planned and advanced attacks on Israeli forces and civilians. CNN said it had asked the IDF whether Abu Ismail had been killed in the strike and what measures were taken to reduce the risk to civilians.
The strike came despite a nominal US-brokered ceasefire signed more than a year ago, under which Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Gaza. According to the United Nations, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,400 people in Gaza since the ceasefire, and there is no fully functioning hospital left in the devastated enclave.
Maryam Abu Hatab, whose brother was killed in the strike, questioned the ceasefire. “They say there is a ceasefire. Where is there a ceasefire? Since the ceasefire, there are more massacres,” she said. “There are massacres every day in markets, in universities, in the streets. The donkey carts stood by us more than the world’s countries.”
Earlier this week, the US-led Board of Peace, which oversees the ceasefire in Gaza, chided Israel for what it called an “insufficient” response to flooding in Gaza. Seasonal rains have swamped tens of thousands of tents across the coastal enclave, where nearly two million Palestinians are displaced, according to the United Nations. The board said the urgent entry and distribution of shelter, sanitation, drainage and other winter supplies was critical to protecting civilians, and called on Israel to allow in more temporary shelters and waste management support. Israel said more than 91,000 tents had entered Gaza ahead of winter, but refused to allow in the heavy equipment needed for large-scale cleanup and rubble removal. “The reconstruction of Gaza can only begin after Hamas fully disarms,” said Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories.
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