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BEIRUT — Two Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza on Monday killed at least 20 people, including five journalists, four healthcare workers and a civil defense worker, according to Palestinian health authorities, the World Health Organization and video taken from the hospital.
Coming two weeks after Israeli strikes killed six journalists in the enclave, the attacks add to a tally that has seen Gaza become the deadliest conflict ever recorded for media workers and healthcare personnel, advocacy groups say.
The strikes targeted the top floor of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, with the first attack coming some time after 10 a.m. Roughly 10 minutes later, as a live broadcast from a local news channel zoomed in on civil defense workers sifting through the wreckage with journalists filming nearby, the second missile hit.
“The civil defense is gone! They [Israel] killed the people!” shouts a journalist from Al-Ghad TV as the scene is engulfed in smoke and rubble.
Other video taken inside the medical complex depicts a dust-covered man dragging himself on the floor away from the blast, while a bloodied cameraman is escorted to a nursing station. Hadil Abu Zaid, a British doctor with the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians visiting the intensive care unit, in a statement described the scene as “unbearable,” with “trails of blood” across the floor.
The Gaza Health Ministry condemned the attacks, characterizing them as “a continuation of the systematic destruction of the health system and the continuation of genocide.”
In a statement on X, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 50 other people were injured in the attacks, including “critically ill patients who were already receiving care.” He said the hospital’s main building, which houses the emergency department, inpatient ward and surgical unit, was struck.
“While people in #Gaza are being starved, their already limited access to healthcare is being further crippled by repeated attacks,” he wrote. “We cannot say it loudly enough: STOP attacks on health care. Ceasefire now!”
Activists in Gaza said journalists often congregated on the upper floor of the hospital and the emergency staircase outside so as to get a phone signal. Five journalists were killed in the attack, Gaza health authorities and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said.
The latter identified the slain media workers as Mariam Abu Dagga, a visual journalist who freelanced for the Associated Press; Hussam al-Masri, a contractor cameraman with Reuters; Moaz Abu Taha, a freelancer who also worked on occasion with Reuters; Ahmed Abu Aziz, who reported for Middle East Eye; and Al Jazeera cameraman Mohammad Salama.
Another contract photographer with Reuters, Hatem Khaled, was also injured, the news agency said.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate denounced the journalists’ killing, saying in a statement that “without a doubt [Israel] is waging war on free media.”
The Israeli military confirmed in a statement that it carried out the strike and that it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and does not target journalists as such,” and that it would conduct an “initial inquiry.”
Later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement describing the attack as a “tragic mishap.”
“The military authorities are conducting a thorough investigation,” he said.
“Our war is with Hamas terrorists.”
Rights groups accused Israel of conducting a so-called double-tap strike, where a second strike follows several minutes after the first. During that pause, rescue workers and medical personnel will assemble. A July investigation by the Israeli news outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call found that double-tap strikes had been adopted by the Israeli military as standard procedure when operating in Gaza.
Monday’s strikes come amid growing international criticism of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which over the last 22 months has led to the deaths of hundreds of healthcare personnel and media workers, and carried out routine attacks on healthcare facilities and infrastructure.
Israel insists that Hamas militants are hiding inside or near healthcare facilities, or that the group’s cadres disguise themselves as medical personnel, civil defense crews and journalists. It has rarely provided evidence proving those accusations.
In June, a group of civil society organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders and others said more than 1,500 health workers and 460 aid workers have been killed since Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others, most of them civilians. Health authorities in Gaza put the Palestinian death toll at nearly 63,000, the majority of them civilians.
Israel has barred international journalists from entering Gaza, except on tightly controlled tours with its military. Meanwhile, it routinely vilifies local reporters as Hamas apologists or operatives. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a tally published before Monday’s attacks that at least 192 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Health authorities in Gaza put the toll at 244.
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Nabih Bulos
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