+++ News from the Middle East +++: Six dead in attack on hospital in Gaza

According to the Health Ministry, which is controlled by the militant Islamist Hamas, six people were killed and at least 28 others injured in an Israeli air strike on the Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israeli military confirmed an airstrike on the clinic on Thursday night. This was aimed at a Hamas commander and other extremists.

In armed conflicts, hospitals and their staff are protected by international humanitarian law. However, if a clinic is used for military purposes, it can lose this protected status. The Israel Defense Forces said the attacked Hamas commander had made Nasser Hospital his headquarters. This could not be independently verified. During the course of the Gaza war, Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as refuges. There are repeated reports from the Gaza Strip itself that Hamas is using certain hospitals.

According to the Ministry of Health, the surgical department of Nasser Hospital was hit. A doctor, the surgeon Risk Abu Schaira, was also killed. An AP reporter on site reported that part of the second floor of the clinic had been destroyed. Debris lay between the hospital beds.

British surgeon Goher Rahbour, a volunteer at Nasser Hospital, said the attack occurred shortly after midnight and shook the entire building. “It was extremely smokey,” said Rahbour, who was on the fourth floor of the surgical ward at the time of the impact. The recovery room on the same floor was reduced to rubble. The Briton reported that he had operated together with the killed Abu Shaira just a few hours before the attack.

The Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis is one of the few remaining functioning medical facilities in the Gaza Strip. Israel's military has attacked it in the past. In 2025, five journalists were killed in an Israeli attack on the hospital grounds - including Mariam Dagga, who worked for the AP.

The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Since then, Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 74,600 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry. The figures from the ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, are widely considered reliable by the international community.

Even after a ceasefire came into force in October 2025, there were repeated Israeli attacks or shootings by soldiers, in which, according to the ministry, 1,622 people were killed. Five Israeli soldiers also died during the same period.