Israel bombs Gaza hospital and refugee camp, causing further deaths

The Israeli military killed seven people in a missile attack on a hospital in the eastern part of Gaza City, while a strike on a refugee camp killed nine people, Palestinian media and officials reported on Sunday.

Among those killed in the shelling of Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp were women and children, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

A further 15 people were reportedly injured in what was the latest of a string of aerial attacks on the central Gazan camp housing displaced Palestinians.

The strike came after a separate Israeli strike killed a further seven people in Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza Strip, according to WAFA

Palestinian civil defence officials earlier reported that an Israeli missile hit the fifth floor of the Al-Wafa Hospital, injuring others and prompting an evacuation of the building in panic.

Israeli military officials, offering a different version, said the hospital was not being used at the time of the attack and was instead functioning as the command centre of a Hamas air defence unit which was targeted with a precision attack.

Information from both sides could not be independently verified.

Ongoing strikes on hospitals and school buildings

Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, Israel has repeatedly hit Gaza’s hospitals, school buildings and refugee camps with missiles, saying that Hamas fighters and weapons are hidden there.

On Saturday the Israeli military ended a three-day operation at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern city of Beit Lahia, during which it said it arrested 240 Hamas fighters.

The patients were evacuated, the hospital ceased operations, and parts of the buildings were gutted by fire.

At least 33 hospitals in the Gaza Strip have had to close since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, according to Palestinian health officials.

Under international law, warring parties are not allowed to attack or repurpose hospitals for military reasons, and international law experts have argued that even if hospitals are used for military purposes, this does not allow the other side to target them.

The well-being of patients, medical staff and others in need of protection must always be taken into account, they say.

Since the beginning of the Gaza war with the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, more than 45,500 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, according to Palestinian sources.

Projectiles fired at Israel

Earlier on Sunday, five projectiles were fired from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory, the Israel military has reported.

Two were intercepted and the others are thought to have fallen on open ground, according to the IDF.

Air raid sirens sounded in Sderot, an Israeli town to the immediate north-east of the Gaza Strip, with police reporting rocket fragments falling in two parts of the town. There were no initial reports of casualties.

Palestinian militants have mounted attacks of this kind for three days in a row. According to media reports, eight projectiles have been fired from the Gaza Strip since Friday.

The rockets were fired from Beit Hanoun, which lies in the north-eastern corner of the Gaza Strip.