The strike hit the upper floor of the hospital on Sunday, killing at least seven people and injuring several others, according to Palestinian civil defense.
The Israeli military said it struck a “Hamas control center” inside the building, which it said was no longer being used as a hospital.
However, the Gaza Ministry of Health claims that the hospital was functional.
Also on Sunday, the Israeli army released images showing the “evacuation” of Palestinian civilians from one of the last operating hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip, which it had raided earlier this week.
Hospital director Kamal Adwan and dozens of other staff were arrested during the raid, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The ministry said Israeli troops stormed the hospital, forced many employees and patients outside and asked them to undress in the winter weather.
The Israeli military said more than 240 people had been arrested in total.
Without providing evidence, the IDF labeled the hospital director a suspected Hamas agent. The Israeli army said it surrounded the hospital and that special forces entered it and found weapons in the area. Palestinian officials have denied that the facility is used by militants.
The hospital has been hit several times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive in the largely isolated northern Gaza Strip against Hamas fighters they say have regrouped.
Fourth baby dies of cold in Gaza
A fourth baby has died of hypothermia in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by nearly 15 months of war huddle in tents along the rainy, windswept coast as of winter.
Jomaa al-Batran, 20 days old, was found with his head “cold as ice” when his parents woke up Sunday, his father, Yehia, said. The baby’s twin brother, Ali, was transferred to the intensive care unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Their father said the twins were born a month premature and spent only a day in the hospital’s nursery, which, like other health centers in Gaza, was overwhelmed and not only partially works.
He says doctors told their mother to keep the newborns warm, but that was impossible because they live in a tent and temperatures regularly drop below 10 degrees Celsius at night.
““We are eight people and we only have four blankets,” Mr. al-Batran said as he cradled his son’s pale body. He described the dew drops that seeped into the tent canvas during the night.uit. Look at its color from the cold. Do you see how frozen it is?”
Children, some of them barefoot, stood outside and watched him wail. The child wrapped in a shroud was placed at the feet of an imam, barely bigger than his shoes. After the prayers, the imam took off his ankle-length coat and wrapped it around the father.
“Be warm, my brothere,” he said.
According to local health authorities, at least three other babies have died from exposure in recent weeks.
The war began when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping around 250, including women, children and elderly people. Around a hundred hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
The ensuing Israeli offensive killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and injured more than 100,000, according to local health authorities.
They say women and children account for more than half of the deaths, but do not distinguish between militants and civilians in their counts.
Israel claims to have killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Israel’s bombings and ground operations have displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, often repeatedly.
Large areas of the country, including entire neighborhoods, are in ruins and essential infrastructure has been destroyed.