Israel attacks a hospital in Gaza, and its attack on a house kills 13 children

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes on residential areas in southern Gaza killed 38 people on Friday, including 13 children from the same extended family, Palestinian health officials said.

In northern Gaza, health officials reported that Israeli forces attacked Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few medical facilities still operating in the area. Israel has renewed its offensive against Hamas in the north in recent weeks, and aid groups are sounding the alarm over dire humanitarian conditions.

In Lebanon, Israeli strikes in the country’s southeast killed three journalists working for news outlets believed to be aligned with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron Iran.

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that Israeli airstrikes and shelling hit the southern town of Khan Younis, killing 38 people and injuring dozens.

The Israeli military said its troops were dismantling militant infrastructure and killing Hamas fighters in the southern city. It said the figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry “do not line up with the information” it has, but did not give its own casualty estimate.

Palestinians said the neighborhood was hit without warning.

Footage from the Palestinian Civil Defense showed rescuers pulling the bloodied bodies of nine children of the al-Farra family from the rubble.

The victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, as well as the European Hospital, where records show that at least 15 members of the al-Farra family were killed. Six members of the Abdeen family were also killed, health officials said.

Saleh al-Farra, who lost his 17-year-old brother and 15-year-old sister in the attack, said shaking from the shelling sent family members running into the middle of the house for cover. The next thing he knew, he said, he was in the rubble of what had been his home.

“I started screaming and screaming until my brother and dad came and started trying to pull me out,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about anybody.”

The medical organization Doctors Without Borders said one of its staff – identified as Hassan Sobh, 41, a father of seven who had worked with the charity for five years – was killed in the attack. It said Sobh was the eighth of its workers killed in the last year of the Israel-Hamas war.

In response to reports that it had stormed the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israeli military said only that it was “operating in the area” of the hospital based on intelligence indicating the presence of militants and militant infrastructure.

The pediatric hospital is one of three medical facilities in the area that remains somewhat operational after more than a year of war. Since the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of hospitals amid its renewed offensive against Hamas militants in northern Gaza, doctors have warned that the dramatic shortage of food and medical supplies has sparked a humanitarian emergency.

Gaza’s health ministry reported that Israeli troops on Friday rounded up medical staff and displaced people sheltering at the hospital and forced the men to undress, a common practice that Israel says is meant to ensure that detainees do not hide weapons The ministry said some Palestinians were detained, without specifying how many.

The Palestinian Civil Defense said Israeli forces arrested two of its workers, including a local rescue coordinator and a firefighter. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the arrests.

The World Health Organization said on Friday it had lost contact with staff at Kamal Adwan, where some had been the night before to deliver supplies and help transfer patients to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The Israeli military body overseeing the distribution of aid in Gaza, COGAT, said it facilitated efforts by the United Nations health agency to provide aid and fuel to Kamal Adwan and evacuate patients.

“This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people sheltering there,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X about the loss of communication on Friday.

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, could not be reached on Friday. In voice messages sent late Thursday, Abu Safiya described dire conditions.

“Patients are still lying on the floors of reception and emergency areas, many in critical condition. There are no resources, supplies or specialists to save the lives of these children,” said Abu Safiya. “We call on the world to intervene.”

Gaza’s health ministry said two children in the intensive care unit died after the hospital’s generator went out and Israeli fire hit oxygen tanks. Israeli soldiers were said to be raiding the hospital, causing panic and chaos in the compound filled with about 600 patients, doctors and displaced persons.

The UN said hundreds of thousands of people were trapped with little food or supplies as Israeli forces closed in on the northern town of Jabaliya. UN human rights chief Volker Türk said Friday that Israeli military actions in the north “risk emptying the area of ​​all Palestinians.”

Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – in which Palestinian militants killed an estimated 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and dragged another 250 back to Gaza – hospitals in Gaza have come under attack. Kamal Adwan was besieged and attacked by Israeli forces a year ago.

The Israeli military accuses Hamas fighters of using the hospitals and tunnels beneath them as bases. Hamas and Palestinian doctors have denied this claim.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants, but says women and children account for more than half of the deaths.

The Israeli military said on Friday that three more soldiers had been killed in Gaza this week, without giving details. This brings to 359 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza since the ground invasion began.

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon killed 3 journalists

A rare Israeli airstrike in southeastern Lebanon hit a residence where journalists were staying on Friday, leveling the building and killing three media workers who were sleeping there. Thick dust kicked up by bomb-covered cars marked “PRESS” parked outside the ruins of the guest house.

Al-Manar TV, operated by Hezbollah, and Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, a station believed to be aligned with the militant group, said its employees were among those killed.

The Israeli military said it was aware of reports that the three journalists were killed in the airstrike, which it said targeted a Hezbollah military facility. “The incident is under review,” he added, without elaborating.

Lebanon’s health minister said on Friday that 11 journalists had been killed and eight wounded since Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group began trading cross-border fire in October 2023.

On Friday, at least two people in northern Israel were killed by shrapnel during a rocket barrage from Lebanon, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service. The rockets hit Majd Al-Krum, an Arab town in the north of the country, hitting a gym. Six others were injured, rescue services added, including an 80-year-old man who remained in a serious condition.