Nasser Hospital in Gaza hit twice by Israel in past 48 hours: UNICEF

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) - A hospital in the southern Gaza Strip was targeted twice by Israeli forces in the last 48 hours, UNICEF announced on Tuesday.

"Over the past 48 hours, the largest remaining fully functional hospital in Gaza has been shelled twice. That hospital is Al Nasser," spokesman James Elder said in a UN press briefing in Geneva.

Located in the besieged enclave's city of Khan Younis, Nasser Medical Complex "not only shoulders large numbers of children who have brutal wounds of war, but it also shelters hundreds and hundreds of women and children from across the Gaza Strip who were simply seeking safety," Elder said.

The overnight shelling resulted in the death of a young girl, the Health Ministry in Gaza had announced Monday.

The ministry said 13-year-old Donia Abu Mohsen "was martyred and joined all her family members after the maternity building in Nasser Medical Complex was targeted."

Donia lost her parents and all her siblings in the war, losing a leg in a previous Israeli airstrike, according to the ministry.

"The Gaza Strip remains the most dangerous place in the world to be a child and, day after day, that brutal reality is reinforced," Elder said.

He stressed that without a cease-fire and sufficient food, water, medicine, and shelter, more Palestinian children would meet their end due to "willful neglect and deathly disregard."

Elder also called attention to past statements by senior Israeli officials, that the army's focus would be on "damage, not accuracy," and that Gaza "won't return to what it was before, we will eliminate everything."

"The sincerity in those statements has been proven with every additional child killed," said the UN official.

At least 19,453 Palestinians have since been killed and 52,286 injured in the Israeli onslaught, according to Gaza’s health authorities.

Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas offensive.