The Israeli military said it was targeting a Hamas command center. The site was filled with tents erected by families displaced by fighting in the enclave.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!An Israeli airstrike on a hospital compound in central Gaza early Monday sent flames ripping through tents housing displaced people, killing at least four and injuring dozens. Videos from the scene appeared to show one man being burned alive as bystanders could do little but watch.
The Israeli military said the target of the strike was a Hamas command center on the premises of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in the Deir al-Balah area. The site was filled with tents erected by families who had fled fighting elsewhere in the enclave. The majority of those injured from the overnight strike and ensuing fire — some seriously — were women and children, Gaza’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
By midday Monday, the tally of the injured had risen to 70, according to Ahmed Salman, director of the civil defense in Deir al-Balah.
The strike was yet another instance of Gaza’s hospitals, which are supposed to be afforded extra protection under international law, coming under Israeli attack. And for the displaced civilians, it underscored once again that no place in the Strip is safe.
A witness told The Washington Post the tents caught fire as several explosions rocked the area. Ahmed al-Ras, 41, a photojournalist for Al-Kofiya TV, a local network, was at the tent for journalists inside the hospital premises at the time of the strike, which caused gas cylinders to explode, he said.
“The fire was very fast and burned all the tents. I saw three people burning, dozens of injuries and hundreds of families running and screaming and searching for their children,” he said, adding that it took about 40 minutes for the civil defense team to douse the fire.
The IDF said in its statement, without providing details, that it took steps to mitigate civilian harm ahead of the strike. In response to questions from The Post, the IDF media desk said the air force had “conducted a precise strike” on militants operating in a lot adjacent to the hospital building.
“Shortly after the strike, a fire ignited in the hospital’s parking lot, most likely due to secondary explosions. The incident is under review,” the IDF said.
In a statement, UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said its colleague sheltering at the hospital compound described the scene as “terrifying,” adding that the person’s own tent went up in flames. The agency did not share the person’s name out of concern for their safety.
“The situation is indescribable,” the person said in text messages shared with The Post by Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the agency. “We miraculously survived the bombing,” they added.
A widely shared video of the fierce blaze appeared to show at least one person on a bed burning alive while onlookers shouted. In the clip, the man lifts his head feebly and looks down at flames engulfing his body.
A separate video clip taken by the UNRWA employee and shared with The Post by Wateridge showed rescue workers wrapping a charred body in a blanket. A blackened foot could be seen sticking out of the makeshift shroud.
“There is a state of fear and panic, and the displaced have no shelter but to sleep in the open,” al-Ras said.
Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said the hospital compound had been targeted by Israel at least half a dozen times previously.
Later Monday, as the sun rose, video published by Reuters showed people picking over the charred and mangled remains of tents, sheet-metal structures and vehicles.
A medical worker at the hospital said the health facility itself was not damaged.
The hospital lacks gauze, syringes and “the simplest of things” to provide care, the medical worker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of concerns for their safety.
“Most of those who survived have severe burns, but they will die after a while because their burns are massive and deep,” they added. “It’s just a matter of time.”
As the blaze swallowed the tents, dozens of injured streamed into the hospital’s emergency ward. “Most of the injured had second or third degree burns,” Fahd Haddad, the head of al-Aqsa hospital’s emergency department, told The Post in a phone call, adding that many of the injured were women and children.
“We don’t have beds available. We were treating patients on the floor. It was a horrible scene,” he said.
Some of the injured had shrapnel in their body and required critical care, he said, adding that the hospital doesn’t have a burn unit and at least a dozen patients were transferred to two other hospitals. Three patients with trauma to the head were moved to European Gaza hospital and eight people were transferred to Nasser Hospital’s burn unit.
Gaza’s health system is under severe strain after repeated Israeli attacks on health facilities and medical personnel, Israeli evacuation orders and shortages of critical supplies.
Israel ordered three hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week, according to Munir al-Bursh, the director general of all hospitals in Gaza, amid an intensifying assault on the enclave’s northernmost governorate. The United Nations estimates 175,000 people are trapped there.
Health officials and residents say Israeli forces are shooting at people who try to evacuate southward and that the hospitals are receiving an influx of people severely wounded by fierce Israeli attacks in the area. On Monday, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said one of its drivers died Thursday from shrapnel injuries he sustained last week in Jabalya.
Israel has not allowed food aid to enter the entirety of northern Gaza — where the United Nations says about 400,000 are trapped — in two weeks. Hospitals are running out of food and water, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday, pleading for help to evacuate patients. Humanitarian and rights groups have accused Israel of violating international law by blocking aid.
“Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need,” Vice President Kamala Harris said Sunday in a post on. “Civilians must be protected and must have access to food, water, and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected.”
More than 42,000 people have been killed and more than 98,000 wounded in Israel’s war in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the casualties are women and children. Israel launched the military campaign in response to the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, during which militants killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took about 250 hostage.
At least 1.9 million people across the Gaza Strip — 90 percent of the population — are internally displaced. Many have sought shelter in hospital facilities and schools, hoping the civilian institutions will confer some added protection. But Israel has repeatedly attacked schools sheltering displaced people as well as hospitals, arguing that Hamas uses the civilian infrastructure for military means.
On Sunday night, Israeli troops fired “a number of tank shells” in the area of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza — five of which hit an UNRWA school housing displaced people, killing at least 22 who were sheltering there, the agency said in a statement. The school was supposed to be an immunization site during the second phase of the polio vaccination campaign the United Nations is running, the agency said, “but due to the damage inflicted it was not able to be used.” The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike.
“The polio vaccination campaign started as planned this morning at all other facilities in the middle Gaza area,” UNRWA added.
The Israeli military body charged with liaising with humanitarian groups in Gaza said it was facilitating the campaign and would work to ensure civilians could reach vaccination sites.