Israeli airstrike on hospital kills senior Hamas official and teen boy
An Israeli airstrike on a hospital in southern Gaza has killed a senior Hamas official as Israel continues to wipe out Hamas’s political leadership at any humanitarian cost.
Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, was killed whilst undergoing treatment at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis on Sunday March 23rd, reported by Al Jazeera on March 24th.
The attack, which Israel has said aimed to kill Barhoum, is the latest blow to the Palestinian armed group which has seen four members of their senior political leadership killed since the collapse of the ceasefire at the start of March.
“We condemn this latest crime, which adds to the occupation’s long record of terrorism, violating sanctities, lives and medical facilities,” Hamas said before adding, “it reaffirms its disregard for all international laws and conventions and its continued policy of systematic killing against our people and leadership.”
Israel has subsequently accused Hamas of exploiting civilian infrastructure to plan and execute terrorist acts at the expense of the Gazan population. However, bombing a hospital, even in a targeted attack, is against international humanitarian law.
The humanitarian cost of the war continues to rise as Israeli forces have killed more than 600 people since resuming their assault on the enclave. On Sunday, the official death toll topped 50,000, a figure many experts believe to be an undercount.
Targeting civilian infrastructure like hospitals only exacerbates the humanitarian crisis. “The ward’s entire electrical system was destroyed. Every door was blown off its hinges. Most of the windows were shattered. The ceiling has collapsed. It’s completely unusable,” according to an Al Jazeera correspondent there at the time of the attack.
Hospitals across the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly targeted by Israeli military offensives, leaving the healthcare system overwhelmed. Further damaged by the lack of medical supplies and medicine as Israel continues the aid blockade into Gaza.
The attack comes as Hamas’s political leadership is decimated whilst Netanyahu strengthens his own with the reintroduction of far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir into his government; Ben-Gvir has openly advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements into the occupied Palestinian territories, also illegal under international law.
Israel has also launched military airstrikes against southern Lebanon after it claimed on March 22nd it had intercepted three rockets launched from the area, despite the ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah.
Al Jazeera, Maghrebi
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