video of a person burned alive, indignation from UNRWA… What we know about the Israeli strike which hit a hospital

An Israeli strike targeting a “terrorist command center” sparked a massive fire in a refugee camp in the courtyard of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

In the devastated and besieged Gaza Strip, Civil Defense announced Monday October 14 that an airstrike on the town of Deir al-Balah (center) left four dead in the compound of the al-Martyrs hospital. -Aqsa, which shelters displaced people. The Israeli army said it carried out a strike on a “command center” you Hamas.

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UNRAW, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, deplored in a statement “another night of horror in the Gaza Strip”between Sunday and Monday. “A strike hit the courtyard of a hospital, setting fire to the tents where people were sleeping”indicated the agency on X.

Videos, presented as following this bombing in this “humanitarian zone” have been circulating on social networks since Monday. “Le Nouvel Obs” has chosen not to broadcast them. In several of them, we see what appears to be a person burning alive.

Some show a head and an arm curled up in the middle of an inferno. In tears, the author of the video screams: “People are burning in front of us”. Other, closer-up photos show the same person on their back, with both hands in the air, burning. The scene was authenticated by “Libération”.

Al-Aqsa hospital bombed seven times

Other images, filmed after the fire by photographers Abdallah Alattar and Ashraf Amra and published by the “Times of Gaza”, show makeshift shelters partly burned in the courtyard of the devastated hospital.

According to photojournalist Ahmed al-Ras, present on the scene and interviewed by the “Washington Post”, the strike reportedly triggered the explosion of gas canisters. “The fire spread very quickly and burned all the tents. I saw three people burned, dozens injured and hundreds of families running and screaming looking for their children.”he testified.

This area has been bombed several times by the IDF since the summer. According to Doctors Without Borders, “This is the seventh time that the Al Aqsa hospital compound has been bombed since March 2024, including three in the last month. » Monday evening, Doctors Without Borders reported 5 deaths and 65 injured.

For its part, the Israeli army said it had struck militants operating from “terrorist command center” located inside the complex. To “Liberation”, the Tsahal acknowledged the fire, but rejected responsibility for it, indicating that “shortly after the strike, a fire broke out in the hospital parking lot probably due to secondary explosions”.

Another strike on a school transformed into a shelter

The same night, twenty people were killed and dozens of others injured in an Israeli bombing on a school transformed into a shelter for displaced Palestinians, in the Nuseirat camp, in the center of the Gaza Strip, Civil Defense said local. “ This school was to be used as a polio vaccination site”indicated UNRWA on X.

“The school was bombarded by a large salvo of Israeli artillery, killing at least 15 people (20 Monday, Editor’s note), including children, women and entire families, and 50 injured”said Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the organization. “This school is home to hundreds of displaced people from different families, including some from Gaza, the south and various parts of the Gaza Strip”he added.

Regarding this strike, the Israeli army declared that it “reviewed the information” on the subject. The IDF regularly accuses Hamas of using civilian facilities such as hospitals or schools for military purposes, which the Palestinian organization denies.

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In addition, in the north of the Gaza Strip this time, five children were killed by a drone strike in the Al-Shati refugee camp, said the same source, attributing the strike to an Israeli drone. “Our teams recovered the bodies of five martyrs, all children, after an Israeli drone targeted a group of children playing in the Al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City”said Mahmoud Bassal. “The bodies were transported to Al-Chifa hospital, located in the western part of the city”he added. “There is no safe place for children in Gaza”Unicef ​​was outraged this Tuesday.

The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once by war. Thousands of children have been killed since the start of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip which, according to the latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, caused the death of at least 42,344 people.