An Israeli air strike hit the Nasser Hospital complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, shortly after midnight on 12 November, according to the Times of Israel live blog. Medics and Hamas’s civil defence agency said at least six people were killed and at least 20 wounded. Al Jazeera, as quoted by the Times of Israel, reported that the strike forced the hospital’s surgical ward to shut down.
In a joint statement, the IDF and Shin Bet said the strike targeted a senior Hamas figure and other operatives “hiding” at the hospital. They later named the target as Muhammad Abu Ismail, the latest commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, and said he was involved in directing attack plots and in holding hostages during the war. The military said it used precision munitions and aerial surveillance to limit harm to civilians, and that the results were still under review. Abu Ismail’s fate was unclear at the time of the report. The statement also accused Hamas of using the hospital for weapons storage, command centres and shelter.
The Times of Israel noted that the IDF took around seven hours to issue its first comment on the strike, which had been widely reported overnight, and that it was unclear why the military said nothing at first about a strike on a medical facility.
Reporting note: The casualty figures come from Hamas-run authorities and medics and could not be independently verified. The IDF’s claims about the target and about Hamas activity inside the hospital are the military’s own and are unverified. This account relies on one outlet’s live blog.
Photo: Felton Davis / CC BY 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons
