An Israeli airstrike hit Gaza’s Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday (Mar 23) killing a member of Hamas’s political bureau as he underwent treatment in the hospital, news agency AFP reported citing a source in the Islamist movement said. Meanwhile, Reuters claimed that at least five were killed and several others were injured as the Israel military continued its ground operations in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
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The death toll from nearly 18 months of war is more than 50,000, according to the Hamas health ministry. Gazans surveyed the destruction after an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in Khan Younis on Sunday.
“The Israeli army assassinated Hamas political bureau member Ismail Barhoum,” the Hamas source said, requesting anonymity to speak more freely.
Barhoum is the fourth member of Hamas’s political bureau killed since last Tuesday when Israel resumed air strikes in the territory, shattering a ceasefire.
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“Warplanes bombed the operating room at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where Barhoum was receiving treatment after sustaining critical injuries in an air strike targeting his home in Khan Yunis at dawn last Tuesday.”
Images and videos shared by news agencies showed the building of about four storeys largely undamaged except for fire blazing in one section off a stairwell.
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‘Terrorist organisation operating inside Nasser Hospital compound’
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed in a statement that Barhoum had been targeted in the strike. The ministry said it hit the hospital with “precise munitions” after it revived intelligence inputs.
It said the target was a key member of “the Hamas terrorist organisation who was operating inside the Nasser Hospital compound.”
The Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli forces “have just targeted the surgery building inside the Nasser Medical Complex, which houses many patients and wounded individuals, and a large fire has erupted at the site.”
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(With inputs from agencies)