The Israeli army, for its part, claimed to have carried out “a precision strike” against Islamic Jihad fighters and to have caused “no damage to the hospital in the area”.
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The Hamas Ministry of Health announced on Saturday, March 2, the death of eleven people in an Israeli strike that hit the tents of displaced civilians near a hospital in Rafah, a town at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army, for its part, claimed to have carried out “a precision strike” against fighters of Islamic Jihad, the second armed group in the Gaza Strip, and did not cause “no damage to the hospital in the area”.
“Eleven people were killed and around 50 others injured, including children, by Israeli occupying forces who targeted the tents of displaced people and a gathering of people near the gate of the Al-Emirati maternity hospital” of Rafah, announced in a statement the spokesperson for the ministry in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra, specifying that an ambulance driver was killed in this strike.
“A big explosion”
An AFP journalist on the scene saw injured people being taken on stretchers to another hospital in Rafah. “There was suddenly a big explosion. They (the Israelis) bombed a square full of people. (…) There are a lot of deaths.”Belal Abou Jekhleh, a resident of Rafah, told AFP.
In a message published on X, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described“terrible” and D’“atrocious” that tents of displaced people could have been targeted.
“Health workers and civilians are not a target and must be protected at all times,” he added, calling for a “ceasefire”.