Israeli strike kills six at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, disrupting care

An Israeli air strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed six people, including a surgeon and a child, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The attack hit the surgical building overnight into 12 November.

MSF said 52 people were injured. At a UN briefing on Thursday, spokesperson Farhan Haq reported a different figure of 27 injured, alongside the same death toll. The reason for the difference is unclear.

The hospital is the main referral centre for southern Gaza, serving an estimated 1.3 million people, according to MSF. The organisation said its inpatient department was extensively damaged and its emergency, radiology, laboratory and operating departments were out of service. Hospital director Ahmed al-Farra told the Associated Press that surgery and other services had been suspended.

Israel’s military and the security service Shin Bet said they had targeted Muhammad Abu Ismail, whom they identified as a Hamas commander, and other fighters. They alleged that Hamas had turned the hospital into a military headquarters. Hamas rejected the allegation, ABC News reported, adding that the military had not provided evidence for its assertion.

MSF had previously reported seeing masked armed men, intimidation and a suspected movement of weapons elsewhere in the hospital complex. It suspended non-critical activities in January and resumed them in April after reporting improvements. Those earlier observations do not establish that the people named by Israel were present during the strike or that the targeted area was being used for military purposes.

MSF and the hospital director said no warning was given before the attack. Israel’s military said it had published advance warnings to the population; it also told AP it had previously called for military activity at the hospital to stop.

The World Health Organization has documented more than 1,000 attacks on healthcare across Gaza since October 2023, Haq said at the UN briefing. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for health facilities to be protected and not militarised or attacked.