Gaza hospital chief injured in Israeli drone strike
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Gaza's civil defence agency said Sunday a drone strike overnight seriously injured a hospital chief in an attack on the healthcare facility, and 11 people were killed in Israeli raids on the Palestinian territory.
Hossam Abu Safiya heads the Kamal Adwan hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza, as the war-ravaged territory is in the grip of a dire humanitarian crisis.
Abu Safiya suffered an injury to his back and left thigh by metal fragments after an attack on the hospital complex, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
After losing a lot of blood, the doctor was in a "stable" condition, Bassal said, adding an Israeli drone bombed the hospital in Beit Lahia, north Gaza.
Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping, Israel on October 6 began an air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia.
Hospital staff have reported several strikes on the facility, while the World Health Organization chief said he was "deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including eight in the intensive care unit" at Kamal Adwan hospital.
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been hit multiple times since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the Palestinian militant group Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel's army says Hamas uses the hospitals as bases, hiding its activities among civilians, but the militant group and medical workers deny the claim.
Gaza's civil defence agency on Sunday morning also said 11 people, "including children", after two Israeli air strikes on Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza and artillery fire in Beit Lahia.
Witnesses also described artillery fire in Al-Mawasi in southern Gaza.
"I am afraid," said 30-year-old Rania Abu Jazar, after she was forced to leave her makeshift shelter, a tent, in the early hours of the morning after intense fire.
"My children are hungry and my (one-year-old) daughter Amal's milk is in the tent. I do not know what to do. If we return, they might shell us again, the tanks are blind and they do not care about killing children and women," she added.