Israel destroys Gaza’s cancer hospital in apparent Netzarim ‘buffer zone’ expansion
The situation inside the hospital is still quite difficult with the arrival of mass casualties due to the ongoing attacks on residential homes in northern Gaza and Gaza City.
Elsewhere across the Gaza Strip, multiple air strikes targeted more residential homes, public facilities, as well as temporary shelters for people seeking protection and safety from the unpredictable falling bombs.
It also involved the destruction, where the Israeli military blew up the only specialised hospital for cancer patients, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital near the Netzarim Corridor in what seems to be an attempt by the Israeli military to expand the corridor and create more buffer zone.
It went – at the beginning of this genocidal war – from 500 metres (1,640ft) wide into now eight kilometres (five miles), and it continues to expand.
In doing so, the Israeli military destroyed more residential buildings, and more of the agricultural lands in the area are being bulldozed.
Key Gaza cancer hospital demolished: What we know
Here is what we know about Gaza’s only specialised cancer treatment hospital that was destroyed by Israel:
- The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital and medical school was built and equipped by the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), a government agency similar to USAID.
- Construction on the hospital began in 2011 and was completed in 2017, at a cost of $70m.
- The hospital was considered the largest medical facility in Gaza, with total interior space of 33,400 square metres (359,514 square feet ).
- It was the only hospital in Gaza accredited to treat cancer patients and had the capacity to treat 30,000 people a year.
- The third floor of the hospital was hit by an Israeli air strike on October 30, 2023.
- Fuel shortages forced the hospital to shut down on November 1, 2023, with the UN warning the lives of 70 patients were at risk. It later emerged four patients died due to lack of medical care.
- Satellite imagery in May 2024 appeared to show the Israeli military using the hospital as a military base.
- Footage posted online showed the Israeli military carrying out a demolition of the hospital on Friday. Israel later confirmed it destroyed the cancer hospital claiming it was used by Hamas – without providing any evidence.
- Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the destruction of the hospital: “The deliberate targeting of a hospital providing healthcare services to civilians in Gaza is part of Israel’s policy to render Gaza unliveable and force the Palestinian people into displacement.”
Scenes of horror at Gaza City hospital after children killed in Israeli bombing
There have been almost nonstop air strikes across northern Gaza and Gaza City within the past five hours, with two massive air strikes targeting more residential buildings.
We have heard from civil defence crews who have been constantly bringing injured people to the hospital that the homes being targeted are full of displaced Palestinians who were forced into internal displacement from the eastern part of Gaza City and were sheltering inside the homes of friends and family.
In the past couple of hours it was very very chaotic here at al-Ahli Hospital with the arrival of five children who were killed in an air strike and pulled from under the rubble.
There was this heartbreaking moment when a father pulled from the ambulance a bag that was full of flesh. Later the doctor discovered the amount of flesh inside the bag belonged to two children of the same family that was killed inside the residential home. We were told by the civil defence crew that eight members of the family are still missing and trapped under the rubble.
Earlier, last night, the Israeli military targeted another home killing 12 people from the same family in the Tuffah neighbourhood. This particular neighbourhood has been targeted repeatedly by the Israeli military, causing further civilian casualties.
This sheer level of destruction adds to the destruction caused over the past 15 months and forces more people into further internal displacement.
The victims of an Israeli air strike are prepared for burial at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, on March 20
