Israel raids a Gaza hospital and its strike on a home kills 13 children
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes on residential areas in southern Gaza killed 38 people Friday, Palestinian health officials said, including 13 children from the same extended family.
In northern Gaza, health officials reported that Israeli forces had raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the area. Israel has renewed its offensive against Hamas in the north in recent weeks, and aid groups are sounding the alarm over dire humanitarian conditions.
In Lebanon, Israeli strikes on the country’s southeast killed three journalists working for news outlets that are considered to be aligned with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron, Iran.
Israeli strikes kill dozens in Khan Yunis
The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that Israeli airstrikes and shelling pounded the southern city of Khan Yunis, wounding dozens in addition to the 38 killed.
The Israeli military said its troops were dismantling militant infrastructure and killing Hamas fighters in the southern town. It said the casualty figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry “do not align with the information†it has, but did not offer its own estimates.
Palestinians said the neighborhood was hit with no warning.
Video from the Palestinian Civil Defense showed rescuers pulling the bloodied bodies of nine children from the Al-Farra family out of the ruins.
As Israeli airstrikes flatten swaths of Lebanon, groups warn the attacks mirror some of the patterns of destruction and displacement seen in Gaza.
The victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis and to the European Hospital, where records showed at least 15 members of the Al-Farra family had been killed. Six members of the Abdeen family were also killed, health officials reported.
Saleh al-Farra, who lost his 17-year-old brother and 15-year-old sister in the attack, said that shaking from the bombardment sent his family members running to the middle of the house for shelter. The next thing he knew, he said, he was waking up in the rubble of what had been his home.
“I started screaming and screaming until my brother and father came, and they started trying to pull me out,†he said. “I didn’t know anything about anyone.â€
The medical organization Doctors Without Borders said that one of its staff members — identified as 41-year-old Hassan Sobh, a father of seven who had worked with the charity for five years — had been killed in the attack. It said Sobh was its eighth worker to be killed since the Israel-Hamas war started more than a year ago.
Reports of Israeli raid at pediatric hospital
In response to reports that it had stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israeli military said only that it was “operating in the area†of the hospital based on intelligence that indicated the presence of militants and militant infrastructure.
The pediatric hospital is one of the area’s three medical facilities to remain somewhat operational during the war. Since the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the hospitals amid its renewed assault against Hamas militants in northern Gaza, doctors have warned that dire shortages of food, medicine and other supplies had triggered a humanitarian emergency.
The Gaza-based Ministry of Health reported that Israeli troops Friday rounded up medical staff and displaced people sheltering at the hospital and forced the men to strip, a common practice that Israel says is meant to ensure detainees do not conceal weapons. The ministry said some Palestinians were detained, without specifying how many.
The Palestinian Civil Defense said that Israeli forces arrested two of its workers, including a local rescue coordinator and a firefighter. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the arrests.
The World Health Organization said Friday it had lost touch with its staff at Kamal Adwan, where some had been the night before to deliver supplies and help transfer patients to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, COGAT, said it facilitated the United Nations health agency’s efforts to deliver aid and fuel to Kamal Adwan and evacuate patients.
Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Hussam Abu Safiya could not be reached Friday. In voice messages sent late Thursday, Abu Safiya described calamitous conditions.
“Patients are still lying on the floors of the reception and emergency areas, with many in critical condition. There are no resources, supplies, or specialists to save these children’s lives,†Abu Safiya said in his voice message. “We appeal to the world to intervene.â€
Gaza’s Health Ministry said two children who were on life support in the intensive care unit died after the hospital’s generator cut out and Israeli fire hit the oxygen tanks. It said that Israeli soldiers were conducting searches in the hospital, sparking panic and chaos in the complex full of some 600 patients, medics and displaced people.
The U.N. has said hundreds of thousands of people have been trapped in northern Gaza with little food or supplies as Israeli forces close in on the town of Jabaliya. The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Turk, said Friday that Israeli military actions in the north “risk emptying the area of all Palestinians.â€
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and dragged 250 others into Gaza — many hospitals in Gaza have come under attack. Kamal Adwan was besieged and raided by Israeli forces a year ago.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas fighters of using hospitals, and tunnels beneath them, as bases. Hamas and Palestinian doctors have repeatedly denied that claim.
Israel’s attacks have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israel’s military announced Friday that three more soldiers were killed in Gaza this week, without providing details. That brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza since the start of its ground invasion to 359.
Israel’s strikes on Lebanon kill 3 journalists
A rare Israeli airstrike in southeast Lebanon hit a residence where journalists were staying on Friday, leveling the building and killing three media workers sleeping there. Thick dust churned up by the bombardment coated cars marked “PRESS†parked outside the ruins of the guesthouse.
Al Manar TV, operated by Hezbollah, and the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV, an outlet seen as aligned with the militant group, said its staffers were among those killed.
The Israeli army said it was aware of reports that the three journalists were killed in the airstrike, which it said had targeted a Hezbollah military structure. “The incident is under review,†it added, without elaborating.
Imran Khan, a senior correspondent for Al Jazeera English who was among the journalists in the Hasbaya Village Club guesthouses, said the airstrike hit about 3:30 a.m. without warning. The series of guesthouses nestled among trees had been rented by various media outlets covering the war.
“These were just journalists that were sleeping in bed after long days of covering the conflict,†Khan posted on social media, adding that he and his team were unhurt.
Hussein Hoteit, a camera operator for Egypt’s Al Qahira TV, said he was sleeping when he woke up to a “huge weight†as the walls and ceiling collapsed. He was pulled from the debris by colleagues and taken to a hospital.
Lebanon’s health minister said Friday that 11 journalists have been killed in Lebanon and eight wounded since Israel and Hezbollah group began trading cross-border fire in October 2023.
On Friday, at least two people in northern Israel were killed by shrapnel during a rocket barrage from Lebanon, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service. The rockets struck in Majd Al-Krum, an Arab town in the country’s north, hitting a gym. Six others were injured, the rescue services added, including an 80-year-old man who remained in serious condition.
Shurafa and Mroue write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Mohammed Zaatari in Hasbaya, Lebanon, and Adam Schreck in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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