Gaza, Nov. 10, 2023 – Israeli air strikes hit three Gaza hospitals and a school on Friday, killing at least 27 people, and a ground battle was under way at another hospital, Palestinian officials said, as the U.S. voiced fresh disquiet at the war’s mounting death toll.
In his strongest comments to date on civilian suffering, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced the number of Palestinians killed, put by Gaza authorities at more than 11,000.
Blinken welcomed the four-hour humanitarian Israeli pauses that the White House announced on Thursday, but told reporters more action was needed to protect Gaza’s civilians.
“Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks,” he said on a visit to India.
Israel has faced growing calls for restraint in its month-long war with Hamas but says the militants, who attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and took hostages, would exploit a truce to regroup. It says Hamas uses civilians as human shields and hides weapons in tennels under hospitals, charges Hamas denies.
Gaza officials said missiles landed in the courtyard of the enclave’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, in the early hours, damaged the Indonesian Hospital and reportedly set fire to the Nasser Rantissi paediatric cancer hospital.
The hospitals are in northern Gaza, where Israel says the Hamas militants who attacked it last month are concentrated, and are full of displaced people as well as patients and doctors.
Israeli tanks, which have been advancing through northern Gaza for almost two weeks, have taken up positions around the Nasser Rantissi, Children’s and Eye hospitals as well as the Al-Quds hospital, medical staff said earlier, raising the alarm.
“Israel is now launching a war on Gaza City hospitals,” Mohammad Abu Selmeyah, director of Shifa hospital, which was struck by a missiles early on Friday, told Reuters.
Gaza health ministry spokesman, Ashraf Al-Qidra, said Israel had bombed Shifa hospital buildings five times.
“One Palestinian was killed and several were wounded in the early morning attack,” he said by phone.
Videos verified by Reuters showed scenes of panic and people covered in blood.
Selmeyah said later that at least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Al-Buraq school in Gaza City, where people whose homes had been destroyed were sheltering.
The Palestinian Red Cross said Israeli forces were shooting at Al-Quds hospital, and there were violent clashes, with one person killed and 28 wounded, most of them children.
Israeli army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht told an evening briefing the army “does not fire on hospitals.
“If we see Hamas terrorists firing from hospitals we’ll do what we need to do. We’re aware of the sensitivity (of hospitals), but again, if we see Hamas terrorists, we’ll kill them.”
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said the Hamas headquarters was in Shifa hospital’s basement, which meant the hospital could lose its protected status and become a legitimate target.
Qidra said clearing out the hospitals was impossible. (Reuters)
