Israeli military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted a Hamas camera

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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday that its double strike on a Gaza hospital targeted what it believed was a Hamas surveillance camera. But the first strike killed a cameraman from the Reuters news agency doing a live television shot, according to witnesses and health officials.

The military released its initial findings into the strike that killed 20 people, including five journalists. It claimed that six of those killed were Hamas militants, but two were identified by their employers as a health care worker at the hospital and an emergency services driver.

The military said the back-to-back strikes on southern Gaza’s largest hospital were ordered because soldiers believed militants were using the camera to observe Israeli forces.

A senior Hamas official denied that Hamas was operating a camera at the hospital.

An initial strike hit a top floor of one of the hospital’s buildings. Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri was killed in that blast while filming from the site, according to a fellow journalist and a doctor at the hospital.

Hospital officials said a second person, who has not been identified, was also killed in the first strike.

Health workers, journalists and relatives of patients then rushed up an external staircase to reach the site of the first blast. Photos taken from below showed at least 16 people gathered on the staircase, trying to help those hit. Among them were four men wearing the orange vests of emergency responders or health workers. No one on the staircase was seen holding weapons.

Video footage taken by Al-Ghad TV shows the second strike hitting, causing a large boom and engulfing everyone on the staircase in smoke. Hospital officials say 18 people were killed in the second strike.

The military did not immediately elaborate on why it struck a second time or how it would have identified militants among the crowd on the staircase. Its statement was issued after an initial inquiry into the attack, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “tragic mishap.”

Among the six people killed Monday that Israel claimed were militants were Jumaa al-Najjar, a health care worker at Nasser Hospital, and Imad al-Shaar, a driver with Gaza’s civil defense agency, which operates under the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, according to the agency and Nasser hospital’s casualty list.

Israel has in the past identified emergency responders that work under the Hamas-run government as terrorists to be targeted, including in the killing of 15 medics in March, when Israeli troops opened fire on ambulances in southern Gaza.

The military’s chief of general staff acknowledged several “gaps” in the investigation so far, including the kind of ammunition used to take out the camera.

The initial findings emerged Tuesday as a surge of outrage and unanswered questions mounted, after international leaders and rights groups condemned the strikes.

Among the journalists killed in the strikes was Mariam Dagga, who worked for The Associated Press and other publications.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli army spokesperson, said none of the journalists killed in the strikes was suspected of being associated with militant groups and that they were not targeted.

The Israeli military said it is conducting an ongoing investigation into the chain of command that approved the strike. A military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military guidelines said both of the strikes that hit the hospital were launched from a tank.

Known as “double taps,” such consecutive strikes have drawn condemnation in wars in Ukraine and Syria, particularly when they hit civilians or medical workers racing to help.

Israel has attacked hospitals multiple times throughout 22 months of war in Gaza, asserting that Hamas embeds itself in and around the facilities.

Hamas security personnel have been seen inside such facilities over the course of the war, and parts of them have been off limits to reporters and the public.

Earlier Tuesday, protesters in Israel set tires ablaze, blocked highways and clamored for a ceasefire that would free hostages still in Gaza, even as Israeli leaders moved forward with plans for an offensive into Gaza City that they argue is needed to defeat Hamas.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza braced for the expanded offensive..

Netanyahu met with his security cabinet meeting Tuesday, but the government said the meeting would not include discussion of ceasefire talks, according to an official with knowledge of the situation. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, said there was a delegation from Egypt in Israel on Monday, and they discussed the negotiations.

The prime minister has said Israel will launch its expanded offensive in Gaza City while simultaneously pursuing a ceasefire, though Israel has yet to send a negotiating team to discuss a proposal on the table. Netanyahu has said the offensive is the best way to weaken Hamas and return hostages, but hostage families and their supporters have pushed back.

“There’s a good deal on the table. It’s something we can work with,” said Ruby Chen, the father of 21-year-old Itay Chen, a dual Israeli-American citizen whose body is being held in Gaza. “We could get a deal done to bring all the hostages back.”

Hamas terrorists took 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, in the attack that also killed about 1,200 people and triggered the war. Most hostages have been released during previous ceasefires. Israel has managed to rescue only eight hostages alive. Fifty remain in Gaza, and Israeli officials believe around 20 are still alive.