An Israeli air strike on a hospital in southern Gaza has killed at least two people, including a senior Hamas official and a 16-year-old boy, Hamas and health officials have said.
Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, was killed while undergoing treatment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis late on Sunday, Hamas said in a statement.
“We condemn this latest crime, which adds to the occupation’s long record of terrorism, violating sanctities, lives and medical facilities,” the Palestinian armed group said in a statement.
“It reaffirms its disregard for all international laws and conventions and its continued policy of systematic killing against our people and leadership.”
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed that Barhoum had been the target of the attack.
Israel’s military said the attack had been carried out with “precise munitions in order to mitigate harm”, following an “extensive intelligence-gathering process”.
“Hamas exploits civilian infrastructure while brutally endangering the Gazan population – cynically using an active hospital as a shelter for planning and executing murderous terrorist attacks in a direct violation of international law,” the military said in a statement.
Barhoum’s assassination came just hours after Hamas said Israeli forces had killed Salah al-Bardawil, another member of the group’s political bureau, along with his wife, in a strike on a tent shelter in Khan Younis.
Israel has killed four members of Hamas’s political bureau since Tuesday, when its forces resumed major military operations in the enclave following a weeks-long impasse over the next stage of its ceasefire with Hamas.
Footage from outside Nasser Hospital showed a fireball exploding from the building’s upper floors as an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Rami Abu Taima was preparing to do a live broadcast at the scene.
Reporting from Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said at least eight other Palestinians were wounded in the attack, all of whom had been receiving treatment for previous injuries.
Khoudary said doctors at the hospital reported spending hours putting out fires in the department targeted in the attack.
“Hospitals across the Gaza Strip are overwhelmed. There are no medical supplies or medicine as the Israeli forces continue to close the border crossing for 21 days now,” Khoudary said.
“The situation is also escalating in different parts of the Gaza Strip, especially Beit Layhia in the north and Rafah in the southern parts of the Gaza Strip.”
Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon volunteering at Nasser Hospital, said the 16-year-old boy killed in the attack was one of his patients.
“I operated on him. I believe on March 18, I did an abdominal operation. He probably would have gone home tomorrow, but now he’s dead,” Sidhwa told Al Jazeera.
Sidhwa said the surgical ward for male patients had been destroyed and would need to be completely rebuilt.
“The whole hospital smells like smoke now,” he said.
“The [ward’s] entire electrical system was destroyed. Every door was blown off its hinges. Most of the windows were shattered. The ceiling has collapsed. It’s completely unusable. It’s going to have to be torn out and redone.”
Sidhwa criticised Israeli forces for targeting the hospital.
“Benjamin Netanyahu has been ill recently. Well, he stands accused of genocide. Nobody thinks Hamas can bomb a hospital because Benjamin Netanyahu happens to go there. That’s crazy,” Sidhwa said.
“That’s completely insane. You don’t bomb hospitals. Everybody knows that.”
Israeli forces have killed more than 600 people since resuming their assault on the enclave, including dozens within the last 24 hours, according to Palestinian health officials.
On Sunday, the official death toll in Gaza since the start of the war topped 50,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, a figure that many experts believe is likely an undercount of the true number.