An Israeli airstrike on a hospital in Gaza has killed five people, including a Hamas political leader and Palestinian medics, Hamas has said, in an attack that Israel said had targeted a key figure in the militant group.
The Gaza health ministry said the strike hit the surgery department at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. The Israeli military said its attack followed extensive intelligence and used precise munitions to minimise harm at the site.
Hamas said a member of its political office, Ismail Barhoum, had been killed.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, confirmed the target was Barhoum. The military did not name the target, which it described only as “a key terrorist” in Hamas.
Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV said Barhoum was being treated at the hospital for wounds sustained in a previous attack. Israel says Hamas systematically embeds personnel in hospitals, schools and shelters, which the group denies.
Video on social media showed a fire blazing on the third storey of what appeared to be the hospital. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.
After two months of relative calm in the war, Palestinians in Gaza have again been fleeing for their lives after Israel effectively abandoned a ceasefire, launching a new all-out air and ground campaign on Tuesday against Hamas.
Another leader in Hamas, Salah al-Bardaweel, was killed in a separate strike in Khan Younis, Hamas said earlier. The Israeli military confirmed it had killed Bardaweel on Saturday.
Both Bardaweel and Barhoum were members of the 19-member Hamas decision-making body, the political office, 11 of whom have been killed since the start of the war in late 2023, according to Hamas sources.
Explosions echoed throughout the north, central and southern Gaza Strip early on Sunday, as Israeli planes hit targets in those areas in what witnesses said was an escalation of the attacks that began earlier in the week.
Signalling it could escalate its actions further, the Israeli military said on Sunday one of its divisions that had operated in Lebanon, where Israel had fought Hamas’s Iranian-backed ally, Hezbollah, was preparing for possible action in Gaza.
It distributed video of tanks unloaded in a field and a caption that read: “Preparations of the 36th Division for Operations in the Gaza Strip.”
At least 45 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli strikes on Rafah and Khan Younis so far on Sunday, Gaza health authorities said.
Palestinian officials on Sunday put the death toll from nearly 18 months of conflict at more than 50,000.
The Israeli military said it did its best to reduce harm to civilians and questioned the death toll provided by health authorities in the Hamas-run territory.
Most of the dead in Gaza have been civilians, according to health officials. Israel said they included about 20,000 fighters. Hamas does not disclose casualty figures.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said the aim of the war was to destroy Hamas as a military and governing entity. The ambition of the new campaign was to force the group to give up remaining hostages, he said on Tuesday.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, spoke to Netanyahu to “emphasise US support for Israel”, a state department spokesperson said. They discussed Israel’s continuing military operations in Gaza, efforts to bring hostages home and US strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, the spokesperson added.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
“Israel’s military offensive has caused an appalling loss of life,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. “As long as this war continues, both sides lose.”
Kallas added Israel must respect civilian lives and that threats to annex parts of Gaza were unacceptable.