UPDATES WITH ISRAELI ARMY’S STATEMENT, ADDS DETAILS
By Anadolu staff
ANKARA (AA) — At least four Palestinians were killed and 16 injured on Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on a tent for displaced people on the grounds of a Gaza hospital, according to official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Several journalists were among those injured in the attack, which struck a tent in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, Wafa said, citing medical sources.
“The Israeli occupation committed a new massacre inside a hospital that provides medical service for displaced people and citizens,” Gaza's government media office said in a statement, referring to several Israeli attacks over the last several months that hit hospitals.
It held the US administration, Israel, and the international community “fully responsible for this crime.”
The Israeli army, for its part, said the attack targeted an Islamic Jihad cell in the hospital’s courtyard.
“It was attacked precisely to minimize harm to non-combatants in the area of the hospital. Al-Aqsa Hospital was not damaged by the attack and its regular functioning was not affected,” it claimed in a statement.
There was no comment from the Palestinian group on the Israeli army’s allegation.
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas which killed some 1,200 people.
Nearly 32,800 Palestinians have since been killed and 75,300 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which on Thursday asked Israel to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.
* Writing by Ikram Kouachi