Israel’s military has admitted attacking the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing Palestinian journalist Hassan Eslaih and another person while claiming it was a “targeted attack”.
Gaza’s Government Media Office confirmed the killing of Eslaih yesterday and described it as an “assassination”.
The Gaza Health Ministry condemned the “heinous” attack on Nasser hospital.
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Esaih who receiving treatment at the hospital’s burn unit for severe injuries sustained during an April 7 Israeli strike on a media tent located next to the hospital.
He had survived that attack, but suffered severe injuries, including burns, and lost two fingers.
Esaih was the director of the Alam24 News Agency and a freelancer who contributed to international news organisations, including photos of the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, reports Al Jazeera.
Israel claims Eslaih was a Hamas fighter who participated in the October 7 attack, an allegation he vehemently denied.
‘False claims’ about journalists
At the time, he told Mondoweiss, a US-based news outlet, that Israel was “trying to obliterate the image of Palestinian journalists with these false claims that they belong to Hamas and other factions”.
He added that he did not belong to any party in Gaza.
Latest Israeli killing takes death toll among Gaza journalists to 215
The Government Media Office in Gaza said the killing of Eslaih took the death toll of Gaza journalists to 2015. It condemned “in the strongest terms the systematic targeting, killing and assassination of Palestinian journalists” by Israeli forces.
It said that Eslaih was “assassinated” while receiving treatment at the Nasser Medical Complex.
“We hold the Israeli occupation, the US administration, and the countries participating in the crime of genocide — such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France — fully responsible for committing this heinous, brutal crime,” it added.
According to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 178 journalists and media workers have been killed in Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon since the war began. Media freedom watchdogs in Europe and the US have often under counted the journalist death toll.
Israel’s military claimed in a post on Telegram that the strike targeted a Hamas “command and control complex” at the hospital — the largest in southern Gaza — without providing further evidence.
Repeated targeting of hospitals
The Health Ministry said the Israeli attack targeted the surgical building at Nasser Medical complex, killing at least two people and wounding patients and medical staff.
“The repeated targeting of hospitals and the pursuit and killing of wounded patients inside treatment rooms confirms the occupation forces’ deliberate intent to inflict greater damage to the health care system and threaten the treatment of the wounded and sick, even on hospital beds,” it added.
According to officials in Gaza, Israel has bombed and burned at least 35 hospitals across the Strip.
This is despite the fact that attacks on health facilities, medical personnel and patients are considered a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Here are some of the worst attacks:
- Al-Ahli Hospital: Hundreds of people sheltering in the car park of al-Ahli Hospital were killed in an explosion in October 2023. In the days leading up to the incident, the hospital director reportedly received warnings from Israel.
- Al-Awda Hospital: An Israeli air raid in November 2023 killed Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr Ahmad al-Sahar of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and another doctor, Ziad al-Tatari. Israeli forces raided the hospital the following month and detained Dr Adnan Al Bursh, who died in Israeli custody later.
- Al-Shifa Medical Complex: Israeli forces raided the hospital in November 2023, killing at least 25 Palestinians, including three medical workers, and leaving it non-functional. They stormed the hospital a second time in March of last year, killing at least 22 people. After they withdrew, three mass graves were found and at least 80 corpses were retrieved.
- Kamal Adwan Hospital: The Israeli military arrested Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, in December of last year after he refused to follow orders to abandon one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza. His arrest came a day after the military killed approximately 20 Palestinians and detained about 240 in a raid inside the hospital, which was one of the “largest operations” conducted in the territory until that time.
Israeli claim rejected
Hamas has rejected the Israeli prime minister’s claim that military pressure helped secure the release of a captured US-Israeli soldier, 21-year-old Edan Alexander, from Gaza.
“The return of Edan Alexander is the result of serious communications with the US administration and the efforts of mediators, not a consequence of Israeli aggression or the illusion of military pressure,” Hamas said in a statement.
The group added that Netanyahu was “misleading his people”, Al Jazeera reports. Hamas said earlier it was a goodwill gesture to US President Donald Trump on the eve of his Middle East visit.
Officers call for war’s end
Meanwhile, a group of former Israeli military commanders have urged Trump to end Israel’s war on Gaza.
The group representing more than 550 former senior officers in the Israeli military and intelligence agencies has written to Trump, asking him to use his visit to the Middle East, which began today, to “bring all our hostages back” and “end the war” in Gaza.
The Commanders for Israel Security also urged the US leader to “end the death and suffering of innocents, launch a Hamas-free ‘morning after’ for the Strip, and pave the way for a regional security coalition that includes Israel”.
By all accounts, “our approach to you represents the view of the vast majority of Israelis”, the group wrote.
The letter also said the war in Gaza “no longer serves Israel’s national objectives”, and that to most Israelis, Israel’s “justified objectives” to “end Hamas brutality” after October 7 “have long been achieved”.
The letter added, “If continued, the war, as well as the aggressive annexation policy on the West Bank, challenges regional stability. Most important, as you have correctly noted, it risks the lives of our hostages.”
