Israel strikes Gaza hospital as attacks intensify
GAZA CITY
A wave of Israeli strikes across Gaza on Sunday hit a hospital, a municipal building, a home and a vehicle, killing at least 21 people, including children, as Israel vowed to expand its security presence in the small coastal strip.
Since the outbreak of war, tens of thousands of Gazans have sought refuge in hospitals across the territory, many of which have suffered severe damage in ongoing hostilities.
The strike on Al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza, also known as the Baptist or Ahli Arab Hospital, came a day after Israeli forces seized a key corridor in the territory and signaled plans to expand their campaign.
It also came after the United Nations warned that medicines and related supplies are rapidly running out in Gaza as casualties surge.
Israel claimed that Hamas was operating a “command and control center” within the facility.
"The bombing led to the destruction of the surgery building and the oxygen generation station for the intensive care units," Gaza's civil defense rescue agency said.
The strike came "minutes after the [Israeli] army's warning to evacuate this building of patients, the injured and their companions,” the agency said.
Media photographs showed massive slabs of concrete and twisted metal scattered across the site after the strike.
The blast left a gaping hole in one of the hospital's buildings, with iron doors torn from their hinges.
Onlookers sifted through the rubble, while some retrieved equipment from a media van also damaged in the strike.
"A child died due to disruption of care," WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X. "The emergency room, laboratory, emergency room X-ray machines and the pharmacy were destroyed," he added, quoting information from the director of Gaza's Al-Ahli hospital.
"The hospital was forced to move 50 patients to other hospitals. 40 critical patients couldn't be moved," he said "Hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law. Attacks on health care must stop."
Founded in 1882 and operated by the Anglican Episcopal Church in Jerusalem, Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital is one of Gaza’s oldest medical institutions. It became the primary hospital in northern Gaza following the destruction of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and other major facilities in earlier attacks.
The hospital is run by the Diocese of Jerusalem, which condemned the attack in a statement, saying it happened on “Palm Sunday, the start of the Holy Week, the most sacred week of the Christian year.” Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
On April 12, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that the military planned to expand its offensive as it completed the takeover of "Morag axis" between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.
The corridor is part of what he calls "the Israeli security zone."
The Israeli army issued a new evacuation order for Palestinian civilians in several areas in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Sunday ahead of fresh attacks.
Military spokesman Avichay Adraee published a map of around 10 areas that the army ordered its residents to leave in Khan Younis before the military carries out airstrikes there.
The warning came shortly after the army claimed to have intercepted a rocket fired from Khan Younis early Sunday.
More than 50,900 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
