At least 500 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza hospital complex: Ministry

The Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike Tuesday hit a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter, killing hundreds. If confirmed, the attack would be by far the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars fought since 2008.

Photos from al-Ahli Hospital showed fire engulfing the hospital halls, shattered glass and body parts scattered across the area. The ministry said at least 500 people had been killed.

Several hospitals in Gaza City have become refuges for hundreds of people, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

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Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said there were still no details on the hospital deaths: “We will get the details and update the public. I don’t know to say whether it was an Israeli air strike.”

In the south, continued strikes killed dozens of civilians and at least one senior Hamas figure Tuesday in attacks it says are targeted at militants.

In Gaza, dozens of injured were rushed to hospitals after heavy attacks outside the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, residents reported. Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official and former health minister, reported 27 people were killed in Rafah and 30 in Khan Younis.

An Associated Press reporter saw around 50 bodies brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Family members came to claim the bodies, wrapped in white bedsheets, some soaked in blood.

An airstrike in Deir al Balah reduced a house to rubble, killing a man and 11 women and children inside and in a neighbouring house, some of whom had evacuated from Gaza City. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike.

Shelling from Israeli tanks hit a UN school in central Gaza where 4,000 Palestinians had taken refuge, killing six people and wounding dozens, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency said. At least 24 UN installations have been hit the past week, killing at least 14 of the agency's staff.

The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centres.

A barrage of strikes crashed into the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, levelling an entire block of homes and causing dozens of casualties among families inside, residents said. Among those killed was one of Hamas’ top military commanders, Ayman Nofal, the group's military wing said — the most high-profile militant known to have been killed so far in the war.

Nofal, formerly the intelligence chief of Hamas' armed wing, was in charge of Hamas militant activities in the central Gaza Strip, including coordinating activities with other militant groups.

Netanyahu sought to put the blame on Hamas for Israel's retaliatory attacks and the rising civilian casualties in Gaza. “Not only is it targeting and murdering civilians with unprecedented savagery, it’s hiding behind civilians,” he said.

In Gaza City, Israeli airstrikes also hit the house of Hamas’ top political official, Ismail Haniyeh, killing at least 14 people. The Hamas media office did not immediately identify those killed.

Israel sealed off Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed over 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and resulted in some 200 taken captive into Gaza. Hamas militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since, aiming at cities across Israel.

Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Nearly two-thirds of those killed were children, a ministry official said.

Another 1,200 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes — roughly half of Gaza's population — and 60 per cent are now in the approximately 14-kilometre (8-mile) long area south of the evacuation zone, the U.N. said.

Aid workers warned that the territory was near complete collapse. Hospitals were on the verge of losing electricity, threatening the lives of thousands of patients, and hundreds of thousands of people searched for bread and water.

The UN agency for Palestinians said more than 400,000 displaced people are crowded into schools and other facilities in the south. The agency said it has only 1 litre of water a day for each of its staff members trapped in the territory.

Israel opened a water line into the south for three hours that benefitted only 14 per cent of Gaza’s population, the said.

At the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid were waiting to enter. The World Food Program said that it had more than 300 tons of food waiting to cross into Gaza.

Civilians with foreign citizenship — many of them Palestinians with dual nationalities — also waited in Rafah, desperate to get out.

“We come to the border crossing hoping that it will open, but so far there is no information,” said Jameel Abdullah, a Swedish citizen.