Israeli forces have bombed an ambulance convoy of critically wounded patients in front of a major Gaza City hospital, Palestinian health officials have said.
An Israeli drone strike hit the entrance of al-Shifa Hospital on Friday, Al Jazeera reports. The raid hit a medical convoy, with ambulances carrying roughly 15 to 20 critically wounded patients, according to Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra, while the Palestinian Red Crescent has said that the area was heavily crowded with civilians.
The exact death toll is still unknown, though al-Qudra says that the strike killed several people and injured dozens more. Videos of the aftermath appear to show a number of dead bodies surrounding the ambulances.
The Palestinian Red Crescent has said that the Israeli military targeted the ambulance in the strike, and video of one ambulance shows heavy damage, as well as blood splatters across the outside of the vehicle. Health officials had planned to bring the patients, and hundreds of others, to the southern Rafah crossing with Egypt in order for them to get care after Israel’s blockade of electricity and fuel forced al-Shifa to shut down one of its two generators on Thursday.
Al-Shifa is the largest hospital in Gaza, housing 5,000 patients as well as roughly 50,000 people who have been sheltering in or around the hospital, believing it to be safer than other areas. Israeli forces had ordered people to evacuate al-Shifa before bombing the people evacuating
In the past few days, Israeli warplanes have been circling closer to al-Shifa Hospital and al-Quds Hospital, in the Tel al-Hawa area of Gaza City, which the Palestine Red Crescent says was also ordered to evacuate days ago. Health care workers and officials have said that it’s impossible to evacuate the hospitals without patients dying as a result.
Around the time of the al-Shifa strike, Israeli forces also dropped a bomb near Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza. The Indonesian Hospital was forced to shut down its main generator on Thursday after running out of fuel.
The strikes came just before U.S. State Department Secretary Antony Blinken pledged that Israel “will never stand alone” and affirmed his belief in Israel’s “right to defend itself.” Officials have said that the U.S. is flying drones over Gaza in order to aid Israel.
Experts say that Israel has been laying the groundwork for the bombing of hospitals, and released a video earlier this week showing an animated rendering of tunnels that they say Hamas has built underneath al-Shifa Hospital, appearing to imply that bombing the hospital — and the civilians inside — would be justified.
Israeli forces said the same of their bombardment of Jabalia refugee camp this week, claiming after their first attack on Tuesday — in which they dropped at least 5 bombs, causing 50,000 square feet of damage — that they had killed a Hamas leader in that raid, which Palestinian health officials said killed 110 civilians and wounded hundreds more.
Then, after purportedly killing the Hamas leader — even though Hamas has said the leader is still alive — the Israeli military bombed Jabalia refugee camp again, killing and wounding yet more people.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 182 new monthly donors in the next 24 hours.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy