There is neither truce nor mercy in the Gaza Strip. As the Israeli army continues its advance into the enclave, completing an encirclement maneuver of Gaza City – where the brunt of its battle against Hamas forces has been waged since the start of its ground operation – the humanitarian toll being paid by the civilian population is reaching unprecedented proportions in the territory. More than half a million people in the city are exposed to fire from the warring parties, growing deprivation and increasingly difficult living conditions.
A storm of iron, fire and blood swept through the city on Friday, November 3. The areas immediately surrounding hospitals were targeted by air strikes. Almost 10,000 people have died since the start of Israeli reprisals for the Hamas attack on October 7, according to the Islamist movement.
The Israeli army bombed the area around the Indonesia Hospital, which had treated most of the victims of the previous days' strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, and fired near the Al-Quds Hospital, run by the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS). Israeli fighter jets also hit the entrance to Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the enclave, which was packed with thousands of displaced persons.
In a video filmed by Palestinian journalist Ismail Alghoull, a crowd of men are seen shouting in panic at bodies on the ground next to an ambulance, the front of which has been partially destroyed. According to the PRCS, the convoy comprised five ambulances: "4 of which belong to the [Hamas-administered Ministry of Health] and one belonging to the PRCS. [...] not more than 1 km away from Al-Shifa hospital, the leading ambulance was directly targeted by a missile, resulting in its immediate and direct damage, as well as injuring its crews and the injured inside." Shortly thereafter, a second missile struck the Red Crescent ambulance "only at a distance of about two meters from the hospital gate." According to the organization, 15 civilians were killed and 60 wounded.
"These scenes are unacceptable! Civilians, ambulances, doctors, hospitals must be protected. Always," posted Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, on X (formerly Twitter). The head of Hamas's political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, held the United States responsible for "this brutality, which coincided with the new visit of US secretary of state, Antony Blinken" to Israel, where he pleaded, unsuccessfully so far, for a "humanitarian pause." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "horrified" by the strike. The Israeli army took responsibility for the bombing, saying it had targeted a "Hamas terrorist cell [which] was identified using an ambulance." A senior American official, in an exchange with the press on Friday evening, explained that around "a third of the wounded Palestinians on the list [of people to be evacuated Gaza] were members of Hamas." That was "just unacceptable to Egypt, to us, to Israel," he added.
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