Israel carried out an airstrike on the surgery building of Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, killing a senior Hamas leader and a 16-year-old Palestinian, both receiving treatment for critical injuries. The complex homes many patients and wounded.
According to reports, an American delegation of physicians was working in the building when it was targeted.
A large fire broke out due to the attack, according to the Gaza health ministry. The Israeli army and intelligence agency Shin Bet, in a joint statement, confirmed that they targeted “a key terrorist”.
Hamas confirmed the assassination of Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas‘s Gaza leadership — elected in March 2021. Barhoum heads Hamas’s charitable institutions. Israel killed several leaders of the Hamas political bureau in 24 hours.
Issam Da’alis, a member of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza and head of the governmental activity monitoring committee, a position roughly akin to prime minister; Ahmad al-Khatta, the director-general of Hamas’s justice ministry; Mahmoud Abu Watfa, who headed the terror group’s interior ministry, responsible for Hamas’s police and internal security services in Gaza; and Bahjat Abu Sultan, head of Hamas’s internal security forces were killed in Israel’s overnight airstrikes.
According to international law, members of Hamas’s political wing are presumptively civilians and are not lawful targets unless they take a direct part in hostilities.
Earlier today, Israel killed at least 46 people, including senior Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil and his wife who were sleeping in a tent.
This is not the first time that Israel has struck Nasser Hospital. Israeli forces placed the medical complex under a devastating siege that lasted from February through April 2024. In early February 2024, medical staff said that Israeli snipers were attacking them inside the complex and that dozens of civilians outside the hospital had also been killed.
United Nations officials tasked with conducting evacuation missions at the time said that the Israeli operations had turned the hospital into a “place of death”, and a mass grave with more than 300 bodies was discovered after Israeli forces withdrew in April.
