Palestinians watch as people try to put out a fire at the emergency department of the Nasser Hospital after it was hit in an Israeli airstrike (AFP via Getty Images)
Israel targeted Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, sparking a huge inferno in the medical facility with at least two people killed and several medical staff injured.
Atef al-Hout, head of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, said the men’s surgical unit was knocked out of service as a result of the airstrike, which killed at least one patient and forced hospital staff to evacuate dozens of patients.
Nasser is one of the largest medical facilities in the southern Gaza Strip, where 34 hospitals were completely or partially destroyed by Israel’s relentless war on the enclave.
The attack comes as part of Israel’s renewed offensive on the Palestinian territory, which since last week has killed over 670 people and wounded more than 1,200 others, mostly civilians.
The Israeli army claimed that it assassinated a “key figure” in Hamas at the hospital, while the Palestinian movement confirmed the man was being treated at the facility.
“The army and the Shin Bet security service carried out a precise targeting of a key figure in the Hamas organisation a short time ago, who was present in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital,” the army said in a statement.
The statement did not identify the targeted individual, but right-wing Hebrew-language newspaper Israel Hayom claimed that the target was Ismail Barhoum, Hamas’ finance chief.
Hamas later said Barhoum was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a ward at Nasser where he was being hospitalised.
“We mourn Ismail Barhoum, a member of the movement’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip, who was martyred in a cowardly Zionist assassination that targeted him in a bombing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis while he was receiving treatment,” said Hamas in a statement.
“Targeting Commander Barhoum while he was receiving treatment in a hospital ward is a new crime added to the occupation’s record of terrorist violations of sanctities, lives, and health facilities. It reaffirms its disregard for all international norms and conventions, and its continued policy of systematic killing against our people and their leaders,” it added.
The ministry of health also condemned the air strikes as a “henious crime” with a “complete disregard for innocent lives”.
Israel claims the resumption of its war on Gaza came after Hamas repeatedly refused to reach a deal to extend the 19 January ceasefire agreement.
Hamas says Israel failed to meet its commitments and refused to negotiate the second phase of the truce as per the agreement, brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar.
The truce saw dozens of Gaza-held Israeli and foreign captives released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israel.
