Al-Aqsa Hospital massacre

Al-Aqsa Hospital massacre
Part of the Israel–Hamas war
Deir el-Balah
Location	Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip
Coordinates	31°25′11.89″N 34°21′36″E
Date	14 October 2024
Target	Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital
Attack type	Airstrike, massacre, death by burning
Deaths	5+ Palestinians
Injured	70+ Palestinians
Perpetrator	Israel Defense Forces

On 14 October 2024, the Israeli Air Force struck tents within the grounds of the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip. As of 14 October 2024, at least 5 people were confirmed killed in the attack and at least 70 were injured after a major fire broke out. The death toll is expected to increase due to the large number of victims with severe burns. 25 people were transferred to Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. Following the spread of harrowing videos showing people burning alive, the White House expressed its concerns to Israel.

Around one million displaced people are estimated to be sheltering in Deir el-Balah.

Airstrike

The strike hit while emergency services were receiving injured people from the Israeli bombardment of the al-Mufti school in Nuseirat hours before, which killed 22 and injured 80 people. According to a Doctors Without Borders coordinator on site, the fire destroyed structures sheltering 37 families. The strike caused families' cooking gas cylinders to explode, further fueling the fire. Four munitions experts reviewing videos of the blaze added that some of the secondary explosions were probably caused by small-arms ammunition but cautioned it was difficult to determine the exact balance without access to the site. Footage showed tents on fire while people tried to extinguish the flames.

Israel claimed to have targeted a Hamas command center embedded in the car park, without providing evidence. Doctors without Borders (MSF), which has staff working in Al-Aqsa Hospital, reported that "it had no knowledge" of a Hamas command center and that "the hospital functions as a hospital".

Victims

Al-Aqsa Hospital fire
External video
(GRAPHIC) Video of fire after Israeli attack, Sha'ban al-Dalou visible.

The head of the hospital's emergency department said many of the injured were women and children. Hospital staff said while the hospital itself was not damaged in the strike, they had to treat patients on the floor for lack of beds. Most of the injured had second and third degree burns; some also had shrapnel wounds requiring critical care. Most of the survivors would eventually die from their "massive and deep" burns, a medical worker said.

Widely shared videos of the blaze, verified by NBC, showed at least one person lying on a bed connected to an IV drip, burning alive, with onlookers unable to reach and save him. The victim, identified as Sha'ban al-Dalou, was a 19-year-old software engineering student at Al-Azhar University who was injured at the IDF's bombing of the Shuhada al-Aqsa mosque a week prior. Al-Dalou's mother was also killed in the fire. His father suffered severe burns while pulling two of the family's children out of the flames.

Responses

• Israel
  • Israel Defense Force: Israeli military spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee said the air force had bombed a "command and control center" in the hospital, and Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani described it as a "precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a command and control center in the area of a parking lot adjacent", both without providing evidence.
• United States:
  • A U.S. National Security Council spokesperson told The New York Times and The Times of Israel the White House had expressed its concern to Israel. "The images and video of what appear to be displaced civilians burning alive following an Israeli airstrike are deeply disturbing, and we have made our concerns clear to the Israeli government," the spokesperson said. "Israel has a responsibility to do more to avoid civilian casualties – and what happened here is horrifying, even if Hamas was operating near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields."
  • The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said at the October 16, 2024 UN Security Council meeting: "'Colleagues, this weekend, like so many of you – like so many people around the world – I watched in horror as images from Central Gaza poured across my screen. Images of what appeared to be displaced civilians burning alive following an Israeli air strike. There are no words, simply no words, to describe what we saw. Israel has a responsibility to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, even if Hamas was operating near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields. We have made this clear to Israel."
  • Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MI) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) both called for an arms embargo over Twitter. Responding to the Times of Gaza's coverage on the fire, Bush tweeted, "There are no words powerful enough to capture the agony of human beings being massacred & burned alive. The U.S. is funding & arming the Israeli military’s extermination of the Palestinian people. It’s unconscionable. End this genocide. There must be an #ArmsEmbargoNow". Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, "The horrors unfolding in northern Gaza are the result of a completely unrestrained Netanyahu gov, fully armed by the Biden admin while food aid is blocked and patients are bombed in hospitals. This is a genocide of Palestinians. The US must stop enabling it. Arms embargo now."
• United Kingdom:
  • The UK Ambassador to the United Nations, Barbara Woodward, said at the October 16, 2024 UN Security Council meeting: "[T]here are no safe places in Gaza. Just this week we saw horrifying images following the Israeli strike on Al-Aqsa hospital, inside the IDF designated humanitarian zone."

See also

• Attacks on health facilities during the Israel–Hamas war
• Gaza genocide