DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian medical charity said Tuesday that Israel destroyed its main center in Gaza City after ordering its evacuation.
The Palestinian Medical Relief Society said an Israeli strike reduced its six-story building in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood to rubble. It said the center was one of the main facilities in the city providing blood donation and testing services, trauma care, cancer medicine and chronic disease treatment.
There was no immediate comment from the
Israeli military, which has repeatedly bombed and raided hospitals in Gaza throughout the war.
Multiple hospitals in the famine-stricken city have been forced to shut down as Israel forces advance. Israel accuses Hamas of using medical facilities for military purposes — which could cause them to lose their protection under international law — but the military has often provided little or no evidence of a significant militant presence.
The head of the World Health Organization, which has partnered with the charity, condemned the strike. “Attacks on health facilities must end. The senseless violence must stop. Ceasefire!” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.
The medical charity said another of its centers was damaged and surrounded by Israeli troops, and that a third center was destroyed in a separate strike. Gaza's Health Ministry said Monday that the Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital and the Specialized Eye Hospital had been forced to shut down because of nearby Israeli military operations.
Israel launched a major offensive earlier this month aimed at occupying Gaza City, the territory's largest, which has already suffered heavy damage from previous raids and bombardment. Israel says the operation is aimed at pressuring Hamas to surrender and return the remaining 48 hostages taken during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Israel believes around 20 of the captives are alive.
The world's leading authority on hunger crises said last month that Israel's blockade and ongoing offensive had already pushed Gaza City into famine. More than 300,000 people have fled the city in recent weeks as Israel has ordered the population to move south, but an estimated 700,000 remain, according to U.N. agencies and aid groups.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 in the Oct. 7 attack. Most of the captives have since been released in ceasefires or other deals.
The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 65,382 Palestinians have been killed in the war, without saying how many were civilians or combatants. It is part of the Hamas-run government. Its figures are seen by the U.N. and many independent experts as the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.
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Magdy reported from Cairo.
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