War on Gaza: Israeli attack on Al-Aqsa Hospital burns Palestinians alive
The Israeli military has attacked tents housing displaced people at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, creating a fire which killed four people and wounded scores of others.
Medical sources cited by Wafa news agency said that the blaze, which broke out following Israeli bombardment early on Monday morning, also wounded around 7o others in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
Footage on social media showed tents ablaze and people desperately attempting to douse the fires and rescue people caught in it.
"I was sleeping in a building nearby, some 300 metres away, and woke up to the sound of the bombing," Bilal Ezzat Khudari, who is originally from Gaza City but now lives in Deir al-Balah, told Middle East Eye
"I rushed to the hospital to see what happened and saw the bombing had caused a fire, which then set off gas canisters used by people and led to a bigger inferno.
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"The fire was 10 to 15 metres tall. It was so big people couldn't help. It kept spreading, and every now and then something would blow up inside, pushing the rescuers back."
Khudari said he saw people inside the blaze being burned alive.
"I saw at least three charred bodies. One of them was a janitor. He had nothing to do with anything.
"There was a falafel vendor who worked and slept here. His wife and son both died in the fire. His son was a good guy, an engineer."
It was the seventh such attack targeting the Al-Aqsa Hospital complex, according to the Palestinian government media office in Gaza.
Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee confirmed that the Israeli air force had conducted the attack, and said that the hospital was a "command and control centre" used by Hamas. He provided no evidence for the claim.
Since the war began, Israeli authorities have frequently stated that civilian infrastructures such as hospitals and schools were being used by Hamas as command and control centres, without providing any evidence.
Maha al-Sarsak, a displaced Palestinian from Gaza City sheltering at Al-Aqsa Hospital, said her mother had heard a drone in the sky at 1am.
"They came out charred skeletons. I saw death with my own eyes"
- Maha al-Sarsak, displaced Palestinian
"As soon as we laid down, the strike hit the hospital's courtyard," she told MEE. "Around seven minutes later there was a fire."
Sarsak and her mother ran away hurriedly. But two members of the al-Dalou family, she said, were unable to leave in time.
"They came out charred skeletons," she said tearfully. "I saw death with my own eyes. It was frightening."
"I saw something burning inside the fire and thought it was a mattress but I then realised it was a woman."
"May God burn you in hell Netanyahu," Sarsak added, referring to the Israeli prime minister.
'Everyone here was innocent'
Mahmoud Wahi, who was also seeking refuge at the hospital, said the attack had given him "chills".
"I saw people burning alive and couldn't do anything to help," he told MEE.
Wahi strongly disputed Israeli claims that Hamas was operating in the hospital.
"This is a lie. There was no such thing... Everyone here was innocent," he said. "My two-year-old niece was wounded. Is she a resistance fighter?"
Wahi's father said that he had "nothing left" due to the Israeli attack.
"No clothes, no tent. Nothing left. I was asleep when the bombing happened and we ran as soon as it happened. We left everything inside," Abo Mohammad Wadi told MEE.
Elsewhere, Israeli artillery shelling targeted a school used as shelter for Palestinian civilians in the Nuseirat refugee camp on Sunday night, killing at least 22 people, including children.
"A strike hit a hospital courtyard, burning the tents where people were sleeping," the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said on X.
"Just before this, an Unrwa school sheltering families was hit in Nuseirat. That same school was going to be used as a polio vaccination site today."
In Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza, Israeli shelling on a food distribution centre killed 10 Palestinian aid seekers on Monday.
Ibrahim Rabea, a Jabalia resident, told Middle East Eye the attack targeted a gathering of people who arrived at the centre to collect the remaining aid there, after they ran out of food in their homes.
At least 10 were killed and 40 others wounded in the bombing, according to initial estimates.
Those killed and wounded were left strewn on the streets "with no ambulances, no civil defence and no one able to rescue them," said Rabea.
Jabalia has been under an Israeli siege blocking the entry of food and water for nine days.
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