Israeli soldiers storm hospital in south Gaza
28,663 Palestinians killed since Oct 7
The Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli forces were storming the main hospital on Thursday in the southern part of the territory after a prolonged standoff.
Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis has been largely cut off by fighting for weeks.
On Wednesday, thousands of displaced Palestinians who had been sheltering there began departing after Israel said it had opened up a corridor for them to flee.
Israeli forces fired into the main hospital in southern Gaza early on Thursday, killing a patient and wounding six others, according to medics, as the army sought to evacuate thousands of displaced people from the medical complex.
Israeli airstrikes, meanwhile killed at least 13 people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, 10 civilians — mostly women and children — and three fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Gaza’s Hamas militants.
The strikes came just hours after a rocket attack from Lebanon killed an Israeli soldier in what was the deadliest of daily exchanges of fire along the border since the October 7 start of the war in Gaza. It also underscored the risks of a broader conflict.
Negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza appear to have stalled, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until Hamas is destroyed and scores of hostages taken during the October 7 attack that sparked the war are returned.
Nasser Hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, has been the latest focus of operations that have gutted Gaza's health sector as it struggles to treat scores of patients wounded in daily bombardments. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian structures to shield its fighters.
Video of the aftermath of the strike showed medics scrambling to wheel patients on stretchers through a corridor filled with smoke or dust. A medic used a cellphone flashlight to illuminate a darkened room where a wounded man screamed out in pain as gunfire echoed outside. The Associated Press could not authenticate the videos but they were consistent with its reporting.