Israeli strike kills 6, destroys Gaza's Nasser Hospital surgery department

At least six Palestinians, including doctors and patients, have been killed and more than 30 others wounded in an Israeli missile strike on a hospital in southern Gaza, according to the facility’s director.

Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at the Yassin building inside Khan Younis’s Nasser Medical Complex shortly after midnight on Thursday, Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra told Al Manassa.

The missiles penetrated the fourth and third floors before one detonated on the second floor, destroying both the intensive care and surgery departments, while the second missile failed to explode, Al-Farra said.

Among those killed was the head of the surgery department, Dr. Rizq Abu Shaira. Several other doctors and nurses were also wounded in the attack.

The strike has forced the entire Yassin building out of service, shutting down its operating rooms, outpatient clinics, radiology unit, and laboratories, Al-Farra said. He warned that the destruction will cut off around one million residents and displaced people in southern Gaza from urgent surgical care, as Nasser Medical Complex was the last remaining facility in the area capable of performing specialized procedures.

A journalist who was in the media tents next to the hospital at the time said the strike occurred at around 1 am without warning. The blast sent thick smoke billowing from the building, while patients and their companions cried for help from the windows of the damaged medical departments.

“We were caught off guard by the explosion, which shook the area while most of our colleagues were asleep. At first, we could not tell where the strike had hit because the missile had penetrated the building vertically. We later discovered extensive damage to patient rooms. A child and a man with a disability were killed while receiving treatment, and hospital staff could not treat the newly injured because the hospital’s operations had ground to a halt,” the journalist said.

The Gaza Ministry of Health condemned the attack, describing it as a “fully fledged war crime” against a civilian health facility protected under international law. The ministry said Nasser Medical Complex had been targeted for the sixth time in three years, following an earlier military raid in which its contents were destroyed. It said the latest attack further weakened an already collapsing health care system.

The Israeli occupation military, meanwhile, said in a joint statement with the Shin Bet that it had carried out a “precise strike” targeting Muhammad Abu Ismail, commander of the Khan Younis Brigade in the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, along with other commanders it claimed were inside Nasser Medical Complex.

Israel accused Abu Ismail of overseeing military operations against its forces and the detention of Israeli captives during the war. It also claimed the hospital had been turned into a military command center, surveillance posts and weapons storage facilities. The statement did not confirm whether the targeted commander had been killed.

Hamas categorically rejected the Israeli account, saying in a statement on its Telegram channel that it was an “exposed attempt and familiar lies aimed at covering up a war crime targeting the destruction of the last functioning medical facilities in southern Gaza.”

In its statement, reviewed by Al Manassa, the movement said that “the martyrdom of patients and the head of the surgery department proves the purely civilian and humanitarian nature of the targeted building.” It noted that Israel routinely used similar justifications after bombing hospitals, including when it struck the same building in Aug. 2025, killing five journalists and rescue workers.

Hamas called on the international community and the United Nations to take firm measures to end the cycle of impunity and hold Israeli leaders accountable for crimes against civilians and protected facilities.