At least 25 Palestinians killed in Gaza strikes

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 25 Palestinians, including several women and children, according to three hospitals. The strikes came nearly a week after Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas with a surprise bombardment that killed hundreds.

The Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City received 11 bodies from strikes overnight into Monday, including three women and four children. One of the strikes killed two children, their parents, their grandmother and their uncle.

The Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis received seven bodies from strikes overnight and four from strikes the previous day. The European Hospital received three bodies from a strike near Khan Younis.

Strike on Nasser Hospital

An Israeli airstrike at a hospital in Gaza on Sunday killed five people, including a Hamas political leader, Palestinian medics and Hamas said, in an attack Israel said had targeted a key figure in the Palestinian group.

The Gaza Health Ministry said the strike hit the surgery department at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The Israeli military said its attack followed extensive intelligence and used precise munitions to minimise harm at the site.

Hamas said a member of its political office, Ismail Barhoum, had been killed.

Nasma Al-Saifi kisses the wrapped body of her nephew, Khaled, who was killed during an Israeli army strike in Gaza on Monday. AP

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, confirmed the target was Barhoum. The military did not name the target, which it described only as “a key terrorist” in Hamas.

Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV said Barhoum was being treated at the hospital for wounds sustained in a previous attack. Israel says Hamas systematically embeds in hospitals, schools and shelters, which the group denies.

The Gaza Health Ministry says the strike caused a large fire in the surgical building of the hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. The hospital says there are a number of wounded.

Traumatised for the second time

An American trauma surgeon working in Gaza says most of the patients injured in an Israeli attack on the largest hospital in southern Gaza had been previously wounded when Israel resumed airstrikes last week.

Californian surgeon Feroze Sidhwa, who is working with the medical charity MedGlobal, said Monday he had been in the intensive care unit at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis when an airstrike hit surgical wards on Sunday.

Most of the injured had been recovering from wounds suffered in airstrikes last week when Israel resumed the war, he said.

“They were already trauma patients and now they’ve been traumatised for a second time,” Sidhwa, who was raised in Flint, Mich., told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Sidhwa said he had operated on a man and boy days before who died in the attack.

Israel’s military did not immediately comment.

Nasser Hospital was overwhelmed with dead and wounded when Israel resumed the war in Gaza last week with a surprise wave of airstrikes that killed hundreds of people.

Like other medical facilities around Gaza, the hospital has been damaged by Israeli raids and strikes throughout the war.

Thousands trapped

Thousands of people are trapped in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after Israeli forces encircled part of it on Sunday, Palestinian officials said.

Israel ordered the evacuation of the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood, telling people to leave by a single route on foot to Muwasi, a sprawling cluster of tent camps along the coast.

Thousands fled, but residents said many were trapped by Israeli forces.

The Rafah municipality said on Monday that thousands were still trapped, including first responders from the Civil Defence, which operates under the Hamas-run government, and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Israel’s defence minister says it is trying to avoid harming civilians as it strikes Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Israel Katz’ statement came nearly a week after Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas by launching a surprise wave of strikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health officials.

Katz said on Monday that “Israel is not fighting the civilians in Gaza and is doing everything that international law requires to mitigate harm to civilians.”

He went on to blame Hamas for any civilian deaths, saying the group “fights in civilian dress, from civilian homes, and from behind civilians,” putting them in danger.

He said Israel would not halt its offensive until Hamas releases all its hostages and is no longer in control of Gaza or a threat to Israel.

Agencies