Israel intensifies strikes across Gaza on Palm Sunday, targets hospital in territory’s north

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Updated 13 April 2025
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Israel intensifies strikes across Gaza on Palm Sunday, targets hospital in territory’s north

Palestinian rescuers pull a woman from the rubble after an Israeli strike on the Manoun family home in Jabalia in northern Gaza
  • Separate strike on a car in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza killed at least seven people — six brothers and their friend
  • Their father, Ibrahim Abu Mahadi, said his sons worked for a charity that distributes food to Palestinians in Gaza

DEIR AL-BALAH: Israel struck a hospital in northern Gaza early Sunday, forcing patients to evacuate as attacks intensified.

The pre-dawn strike hit Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, after Israel issued an evacuation warning, according to Gaza’s ministry of health. One patient, a girl, died during the evacuation because medical staff were unable to provide urgent care, it said.

Strikes on Palm Sunday

The hospital is run by the Diocese of Jerusalem, which condemned the attack in a statement, saying it happened on “Palm Sunday, the start of the Holy Week, the most sacred week of the Christian year.” Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

Israel said it struck a command and control center used by Hamas at the hospital to plan and execute attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers, without providing evidence. It said prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm, including issuing warnings, and using precise munitions and aerial surveillance.

In a statement Sunday, Hamas denied the allegations that the hospital was used by militants and called for an independent international investigation.

Hours later, a separate strike on a car in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, killed at least seven people — six brothers and their friend — according to staff at the morgue of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies. The brothers, of whom the youngest was 10, were buried in Deir Al-Balah.

Their father, Ibrahim Abu Mahadi, said his sons worked for a charity that distributes food to Palestinians in Gaza. “For what sin were they killed?” he said.

Associated Press reporters saw the mangled, bloodied car after the attack as relatives wept over the bodies.

Other strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis killed at least three people, according to staff at Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.

The Israeli military also said they targeted another command and control center in the area of Deir Al-Balah when many Hamas militants were present and planning to carry out an attack against Israeli soldiers. This was not connected to the strike on the car in the same area, which the army said it was looking into.

In the last 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said that 11 people were killed and more than 100 wounded.

The war started after Hamas killed 1,200 people during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack, mostly civilians, and took 250 people captive, many of whom were eventually freed in ceasefire deals.

More than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza have so far been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive, according to the health ministry there, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count but says more than half of the dead are women and children.

Israel expands across Gaza

The strikes came hours after Israel’s defense minister said that military activity would rapidly expand across Gaza and that people would have to evacuate from “fighting zones.” Israel also announced Saturday the completion of the Morag corridor, cutting off the southern city of Rafah from the rest of Gaza, with the military saying it would soon expand “vigorously” in most of the small coastal territory.

Israeli authorities have vowed to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, 24 believed to be alive, and accept proposed new ceasefire terms.

The director of Al-Ahli Hospital, Dr. Fadel Naim, said they were warned of the attack before it was struck. In a post on X, he wrote that the emergency room, pharmacy and surrounding buildings were severely damaged, impacting more than 100 patients and dozens of medical staff.

The health ministry said the strike destroyed the ward for outpatients and laboratories and damaged the emergency ward.

Images of the aftermath showed the hospital’s caved-in cement roof, surrounded by debris. Dr. Munir Al-Boursh, the health ministry’s director general called the evacuation frightening, with people carried out into the streets in hospital beds.

“It was very scary for the patients ... we did not know what happened,” he said. The health ministry said patients have since been transferred to three other hospitals in Gaza City, including Shifa, Al-Quds and the Red Crescent Field Hospital.

The aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians said this was the fifth attack on the hospital since the war began.

Medical facilities often come under fire in wars, but combatants usually depict such incidents as accidental or exceptional, since hospitals enjoy special protection under international law. In its 18-month campaign in Gaza, Israel has stood out by carrying out an open campaign on hospitals, besieging and raiding them, some several times, as well as hitting multiple others in strikes while accusing Hamas of using them as cover for its fighters.

Last month Israel struck Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis city, the largest in southern Gaza, killing two people and wounding others and causing a large fire, the territory’s health ministry said. The facility was overwhelmed with dead and wounded when Israel ended the ceasefire with a surprise wave of airstrikes.


Turkiye, Syria sign defense cooperation MoU after Ankara talks

Turkiye, Syria sign defense cooperation MoU after Ankara talks
Updated 7 sec ago
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Turkiye, Syria sign defense cooperation MoU after Ankara talks

Turkiye, Syria sign defense cooperation MoU after Ankara talks
ANKARA: The defense ministers of Turkiye and Syria signed a memorandum of understanding on military training and consultancy after talks in Ankara on Wednesday, Turkiye’s defense ministry said.
The neighbors had been negotiating a comprehensive military cooperation agreement for months, after the ousting of Bashar Assad in December.

Indonesian doctor in Gaza gives witness account to Israel’s assassination of Anas Al-Sharif

Indonesian doctor in Gaza gives witness account to Israel’s assassination of Anas Al-Sharif
Updated 16 min 10 sec ago
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Indonesian doctor in Gaza gives witness account to Israel’s assassination of Anas Al-Sharif

Indonesian doctor in Gaza gives witness account to Israel’s assassination of Anas Al-Sharif
  • ⁠Neurosurgeon Dr. Eka Budhi Satyawardhana was present at the scene when the attack took place
  • Assassination of Anas Al-Sharif and the doctor’s account have sent chills through Indonesia

DUBAI: An Indonesian doctor volunteering in Gaza has given a witness account of Israel’s assassination of Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif earlier this week, describing how an Israeli drone bombed a gathering of journalists, killing an entire media crew.

Al-Sharif, Al Jazeera’s 28-year-old Arabic correspondent who had reported extensively from northern Gaza, was one of the network’s most recognizable faces.

He was killed inside a tent for journalists outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday night, alongside six other people, including another Al Jazeera correspondent, Mohammed Qreiqeh, and the network’s camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal. Also killed were freelance cameraman Momen Aliwa and freelance journalist Mohammed Al-Khalidi.

Dr. Eka Budhi Satyawardhana, a neurosurgeon from the Jakarta-based Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, who is currently volunteering at Al-Shifa Hospital, was at the scene when the attack took place.

“It happened around 11:20 p.m. At that time, our MER-C team and members of several medical teams from other NGOs were resting in the mess hall, but we all woke up when we heard a very loud explosion,” he said in a voice message released by MER-C on Tuesday evening.

“The bombing was carried out with a quadcopter. Usually, if a quadcopter is spying, it has AI that pinpoints the location, and then the facial features. When the AI result matches the targeted victim, the bomb is released.”

The site was busy at the time of the attack, as a simple food stall in front of the hospital was a gathering place for journalists.

For another 10 hours, the hospital’s emergency teams were still trying to save those wounded, including a child whose body was torn by the blast.

“The emergency room was still very busy around 8 or 9 in the morning. They were treating victims of the bombing,” Dr. Satyawardhana said. “The explosion was large, causing collateral damage.”

The killing and the doctor’s account have sent chills through Indonesia, where many people have been following Al-Sharif’s reporting.

“They’re using AI to detect faces and kill with drones ... That’s so scary. I felt like my body was drowning and aching,” Wanda Hamidah, an Indonesian actress and politician, told Arab News.

“Anas was one of the last surviving journalists in Gaza. They’re targeting journalists, nurses, doctors, medical staff. This genocidal cruelty is beyond words.”

The assassination of Al-Sharif, who has been widely celebrated as the “voice of Gaza,” came after months of incitement against him and Israeli officials numerous times, hinting that he was on their hit list.

Aware of it, Al-Sharif wrote his last will in advance. It was published on his social media accounts following his killing.

“If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,” he wrote. “Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people.”

Israel has killed nearly 270 journalists and media workers since launching its war on Gaza, according to Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2022.

Data from Brown University’s “Cost of War” project shows that more journalists were killed in Israel’s war on Gaza than in the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.

“It looks like a desperate attempt to silence all the journalists, and it’s so clear. They are clearly targeting journalists,” said Paramita Mentari Kesuma, an Indonesian sustainability expert.

After Al-Sharif’s assassination, many Western media outlets failed to condemn the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists and instead carried the Israeli military’s justification for his killing, framing him — like many others over the past 22 months — as a legitimate target.

“Journalists do not speak on behalf of other journalists who are attacked,” Kesuma said. “Journalists should come together to speak up.”


Israel pounds Gaza City, 123 dead in last 24 hours

Israel pounds Gaza City, 123 dead in last 24 hours
Updated 11 min 54 sec ago
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Israel pounds Gaza City, 123 dead in last 24 hours

Israel pounds Gaza City, 123 dead in last 24 hours
  • Death toll is the worst in a week as Israel continues to ignore global outrage
  • Netanyahu again claims Gazans should leave territory as his government prepare offensive to take over Gaza City

CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Israel’s military pounded Gaza City on Wednesday prior to a planned takeover, with another 123 people killed in the last day according to the Gaza health ministry, while militant group Hamas held further talks with Egyptian mediators.

The 24-hour death toll was the worst in a week and added to the massive fatalities from the nearly two-year war that has shattered the enclave housing more than 2 million Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated an idea — also enthusiastically floated by US President Donald Trump — that Palestinians should simply leave.

“They’re not being pushed out, they’ll be allowed to exit,” he told Israeli television channel i24NEWS. “All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us.”

Arabs and many world leaders are aghast at the idea of displacing the Gaza population, which Palestinians say would be like another “Nakba” (catastrophe) when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced out during a 1948 war.

Israel’s planned re-seizure of Gaza City — which it took in the early days of the war before withdrawing — is probably weeks away, officials say. That means a ceasefire is still possible though talks have been floundering and conflict still rages.

Israeli planes and tanks bombed eastern areas of Gaza City heavily, residents said, with many homes destroyed in the Zeitoun and Shejaia neighborhoods overnight. Al-Ahli hospital said 12 people were killed in an airstrike on a home in Zeitoun.

Tanks also destroyed several houses in the east of Khan Younis in south Gaza too, while in the center Israeli gunfire killed nine aid-seekers in two separate incidents, Palestinian medics said. Israel’s military did not comment.

Eight more people, including three children, have died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said. That took the total to 235, including 106 children, since the war began.

Israel disputes those malnutrition and hunger figures reported by the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.

Hamas chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya’s meetings with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Wednesday were to focus on stopping the war, delivering aid and “ending the suffering of our people in Gaza,” Hamas official Taher Al-Nono said in a statement.

Egyptian security sources said the talks would also discuss the possibility of a comprehensive ceasefire that would see Hamas relinquish governance in Gaza and concede its weapons.

A Hamas official told Reuters the group was open to all ideas if Israel ends the war and pulls out. However, “Laying down arms before the occupation is dismissed is impossible,” the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Netanyahu’s plan to expand military control over Gaza, which Israeli sources said could be launched in October, has heightened global outcry over the widespread devastation, displacement and hunger in the enclave.

Twenty-four nations this week decried the “unimaginable levels” of suffering and urged Israel to allow unrestricted aid.

Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid and says it has taken steps to increase supplies, including daily combat pauses in some areas and protected routes for convoys.

The Israeli military on Wednesday said that nearly 320 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings and that a further nearly 320 trucks were collected and distributed by the UN and international organizations in the past 24 hours along with three tankers of fuel and 97 pallets of air-dropped aid.

But the UN and Palestinians say aid remains far from sufficient.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza since then has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.

Arab states and much of the international community want post-war Gaza to be governed by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governance in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The authority’s foreign minister, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, told reporters it was ready to assume full responsibility in Gaza. Hamas would have no role and be required to hand over arms, she added, calling for an international peacekeeping force and withdrawal by Israel.

Hamas says it is ready to quit Gaza governance for a non-partisan technocratic entity agreed by all Palestinian parties.

Israel says it does not trust the PA to rule Gaza.


Israeli settlers kill 35-year-old Palestinian in Duma

Israeli settlers kill 35-year-old Palestinian in Duma
Updated 26 min 30 sec ago
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Israeli settlers kill 35-year-old Palestinian in Duma

Israeli settlers kill 35-year-old Palestinian in Duma
  • Palestinian Red Crescent Society reports that it treated Thameen Khalil Reda Dawabsheh before he died

LONDON: Israeli settlers killed a Palestinian man on Wednesday afternoon in Duma village, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Thameen Khalil Reda Dawabsheh, 35, was shot during an attack on the village. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that its staff treated Dawabsheh before he succumbed to his wounds.

Suleiman Dawabsheh, head of the Duma council, said Israeli settlers attacked residents and opened fire in the southern part of the village during ongoing land-leveling activities, the Wafa news agency reported.

Since January, at least 10 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers, bringing the death toll to 30 since late 2023, according to Wafa.


Drone strikes target army celebration in central Sudan: witnesses

Drone strikes target army celebration in central Sudan: witnesses
Updated 13 August 2025
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Drone strikes target army celebration in central Sudan: witnesses

Drone strikes target army celebration in central Sudan: witnesses
  • Drone strikes targeted the Sudanese town of Tamboul, southeast of the capital Khartoum, on Wednesday during a celebration organized by the army, two witnesses told AFP

PORT SUDAN: Drone strikes targeted the Sudanese town of Tamboul, southeast of the capital Khartoum, on Wednesday during a celebration organized by the army, two witnesses told AFP.

One Tamboul resident said chaos had erupted in the central square where “hundreds of people had gathered” for the ceremony as air defenses responded.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the strikes, the first in Al-Jazira state in months, and neither the army nor its paramilitary foes issued any comment.

Al-Jazira was Sudan’s pre-war agricultural heartland.

It had been largely calm since the army recaptured it from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in January in the same counteroffensive that saw it retake Khartoum in March.

According to the United Nations, around a million people have returned to their homes in Al-Jazira since January.

Wednesday’s celebration in Tamboul was due to be attended by Abu Aqla Kaykal, the commander of the Sudan Shield Forces, an armed group currently aligned with the regular army which has been accused of atrocities while fighting on both sides of Sudan’s devastating war.

His defection back to the army’s side late last year helped pave the way for its gains of recent months.

Since it began in April 2023, the war between the regular army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.

The army now controls the center, north and east of Sudan, while the RSF hold nearly all of the west and parts of the south.