ISRAEL has struck Nasser Hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip, killing at least 21 people, including five journalists, as well as medics and rescue workers, in the latest deliberate attack on civilians and the besieged enclave’s decimated health system.
Monday’s attack, which killed journalists who worked for Al Jazeera, the Reuters and Associated Press (AP) news agencies, and others, was among the deadliest of a multitude of Israeli strikes that have targeted both hospitals and media workers over the course of the nearly two-year genocidal assault.
It comes as Israel widens its offensive to heavily populated areas and urban centres, including Gaza City, increasing the already heightened peril for the population.
The first strike of the “double-tap” attack, where one strike is followed by a second soon after, hit the top floor of a building at Nasser Hospital. Minutes later, as journalists and rescuers in orange vests rushed up an external staircase, a second projectile hit, said Dr Ahmed al-Farra, the head of the paediatrics department.
Among the journalists killed were Al Jazeera’s Mohammad Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Daqqa, a freelance journalist working for AP at the time, as well as Ahmed Abu Aziz and Moaz Abu Taha.
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said the attack has “sent the entire area into an absolute sense of chaos and panic”.
“Not only for passers-by or people living in the vicinity of the hospital, but for the patients themselves, who are receiving treatment in one of the areas that must be protected under … international humanitarian law,” Abu Azzoum said.
The attack was met with widespread global condemnation, including from press freedom groups and rights advocates, who expressed outrage over Israel’s repeated targeted killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
Al Jazeera condemned the attack as “a clear intent to bury the truth”.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, also decried the attack.
“Rescuers killed in line of duty. Scenes like this unfold every moment in Gaza, often unseen, largely undocumented,” Albanese said.
“I beg states: how much more must be witnessed before you act to stop this carnage? Break the blockade. Impose an Arms Embargo. Impose Sanctions.”
Israel’s allies, such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, have called for an investigation.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate also condemned Israel for the strikes, saying it represented “an open war against free media, with the aim of terrorising journalists and preventing them from fulfilling their professional duty of exposing its crimes to the world”.
The attack raises the death toll of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 to at least 273, according to an Al Jazeera tally.
The Committee to Protect Journalists called for “the international community to hold Israel accountable for its continued unlawful attacks on the press”.