'Unspeakable Cruelty': Israeli Strikes on Gaza Hospital, Refugee Camps Kill Dozens

Dozens of Palestinians were killed and many more wounded Sunday and Monday by Israeli attacks on a Gaza hospital and multiple refugee camps, where victims included people queueing for food and a group of children at play.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said at least 10 Palestinians were killed and at least 70 others wounded Monday by Israel Defense Forces shelling of hungry people waiting for flour at a food distribution center in the Jabalia refugee camp, where dozens of homes were reportedly destroyed since Saturday.

Medics said the victims from Monday's strike included many women and children. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said the IDF operates "only against terrorists" and that the attack is being investigated.

Earlier on Monday, at least four people were killed and dozens more wounded in an IDF airstrike on the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital compound in Deir al-Balah, where Palestinians forcibly displaced by Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza were sheltering. The strike caused an inferno that raged through the densely packed tent encampment. Video footage of the attack recorded by journalist Saleh al Jafarawi showed at least one person burning alive as horrified bystanders looked on unable to help.

"We woke up to smoke, flames, fire, and burning pieces falling on the tents from every direction," survivor Om Ahmad Radi toldAl Jazeera. "The explosions terrified us in our tents and outside where we live behind al-Aqsa Hospital."

"The fire trucks couldn't get here," Radi added. "There were so many burned and charred bodies all over the place. The amount of fire and explosions was enormous. We witnessed one of the most horrible and brutal nights."

The Gaza Ministry of Health said most victims were women and children. An IDF spokesperson claimed without evidence that the airstrike targeted a "command and control center" used by Hamas, the Palestinian group that led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Responding to the attack on social media, U.S. Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said that "Israeli forces launched missiles at al-Aqsa Hospital, where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in tents and receiving the very limited healthcare services available."

"ISRAELI FORCES BURNED THEM ALIVE! Can you see the hand?" she said, referring to a graphic image of one of the victims. "This is the extermination of a whole people!"

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American member of Congress— called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "genocidal maniac" who "is burning Palestinians alive, bombing hospitals, starving people, and killing aid workers."

Last week, an independent panel of United Nations experts said that Israel "has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."

On Sunday, an IDF artillery attack targeting a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp housing forcibly displaced Palestinians killed at least 22 people including 15 children and injured at least scores more.

"There seems to be no end to the horrors that Palestinians in Gaza are forced to endure," U.N. Acting Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya said in a statement Monday. "There really is no safe place in Gaza for people to go."

Earlier Sunday, at least five Palestinian children were killed and at least a dozen others, including women and children, were injured as Israeli forces bombed a group of children playing in the al-Shati refugee camp, according toThe Palestine Chronicle. Some observers said the massacre evoked memories of a 2014 Israeli attack that killed four boys playing soccer on a beach in Gaza City.

Hamas condemned the al-Shati attack as "a horrific crime and a moral degradation that exceeds all limits and norms." The armed group—whose political wing has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades—called for "filing lawsuits before all competent courts, most notably the International Criminal Court," whose chief prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—at least one of whom, political chief Ismail Haniyeh, has been assassinated by Israel—for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including extermination.

Israel is also on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Gaza Government Media Office Director-General Ismail Al-Thawabta said over the weekend that Israeli forces have killed more than 300 Palestinians in northern Gaza since the start of the latest IDF offensive there earlier this month. Al-Thawabta accused Israel of waging a "criminal war of extermination" and said it is blocking fuel and other critical supplies from reaching hospitals in northern Gaza.

Since the October 2023 attack, Israeli forces have killed or maimed more than 150,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 10,000 people who are missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings, according to Gazan and international officials. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, and at least hundreds of thousands of others have been starved or sickened.

Thousands more people have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank of Palestine and in Lebanon, where Hezbollah fighters have launched thousands of rockets and other projectiles at Israel, killing and wounding hundreds.

On Sunday, the United States—which has provided Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of military aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of multiple U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolutions—said it would deploy around 100 troops to the key Mideast ally to operate an advanced anti-missile system, sparking further fears of a wider regional war that would likely include an attack on Iran.

"When will our country stop funding this madness?" Tlaib asked Monday. "When?"