The Gaza Hospital strike attracts new attention to attacks by Israel’s medical facilities

On Tuesday, the strikes of Israel in a large hospital in the south of Gaza, in order to kill a high commander of Hamas, attracted new attention to one of the most controversial problems of the war: Israeli attacks against medical facilities and the use by Hamas of these sites for military purposes.

The attack on the European Gaza Hospital Complex near Khan Younis killed at least six people, according to the Gazan medical authorities, and left several deep craters in and around the hospital field, depending on the video filmed on the site and verified by the New York Times.

In a separate set of attacks, Israeli strikes killed dozens of people in northern Gaza overnight, Palestinian health officials announced on Wednesday.

Even in a war that decimated the Gaza health sector, Israel has rarely launched a powerful attack on a health complex that the one that damaged the European Gaza Hospital on Tuesday.

The Israeli army said it was targeting a Hamas command center under the complex, and Israeli officials who spoke under the cover of anonymity to disclose sensitive details have said that the specific objective was Muhammad Sinwar, the main commander of Hamas.

Imad al -Hout, the director of the hospital, said in a telephone interview that the strikes – which, according to him, had been carried out without warning – had damaged the walls and the pipes, cut off the supply of water, put the hospital out of service and forced most of the 200 patients to evacuate. Dr. Al-Hout denied that Hamas fighters operated inside the hospital complex, adding that he did not think that the group had dug tunnels below, although it cannot definitively exclude it.