Two Israeli missiles hit a building inside a main Gaza hospital on Sunday, destroying the emergency and reception department and damaging other structures, medics said, in a strike which Israel said was against Hamas fighters exploiting the facility.
The BBC reported the Hamas-run health ministry as saying the air strike at the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital had destroyed part of the last functioning hospital in Gaza City.
Health officials had moved patients from the building after one person said he received a call from someone who identified himself with the Israeli security shortly before the attack took place.
One patient died during the evacuation because medical staff were unable to provide urgent care, Gaza’s ministry of health said.
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The Israeli military was looking into the report, a spokesperson said.
Images circulating on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed dozens of people leaving the premises, with some appearing to be dragging sick relatives on hospital beds.
Hospital director Dr Fadel Naim said they were warned of the attack beforehand. In a post on social media site X, he wrote that the emergency room, pharmacy and surrounding buildings were severely damaged, impacting more than 100 patients and dozens of medical staff.
The health ministry said the strike destroyed the ward for outpatients and laboratories and damaged the emergency ward.
The Hamas-run government media office condemned the attack and said in a statement that Israel was deliberately destroying Gaza’s healthcare system. Israel says Hamas systematically exploits civilian structures and that its fighters regularly embed in Gaza’s hospitals, which the militant group denies. Israeli forces have carried out numerous raids in medical facilities in the enclave.
Israel said it struck a command and control centre used by Hamas at the hospital to plan and execute attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. It said that before the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm, including issuing warnings, and using precise munitions and aerial surveillance.
The strikes came hours after Israel’s defence minister said military activity would rapidly expand across Gaza and that people would have to evacuate from “fighting zones”.
Israel announced on Saturday the completion of the Morag corridor, cutting off the southern city of Rafah from the rest of Gaza, with the military saying it would soon expand “vigorously” in most of the small coastal territory.
Israeli authorities have vowed to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, 24 believed to be alive, and accept proposed new ceasefire terms.
Separate strikes in the enclave on Sunday killed the head of a police station in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Hamas-run enclave, Hamas media reported.
At least eight more people, including a woman, were killed further north, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said. There was no immediate Israeli comment on those reports.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, local health authorities have said. Much of Gaza is in ruins and most of its population has been displaced. - Reuters and Associated Press
