Strike on Nasser Hospital devastates surgical and intensive care wards
At least five Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a building at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, where the surgical wards and intensive care units were housed. Twenty others were injured, deepening the pressure on a facility already operating under extreme wartime strain. A surgeon is reported to be among the dead.
The blast landed early on Thursday after a missile fired from a warplane struck the hospital structure, according to eyewitnesses who described a brief pass over the area before impact. Thick smoke filled the building, and video shared by activists showed extensive damage on the second floor, where medical equipment and beds were thrown across the ward. In a setting where every functioning bed can determine whether a critically ill patient survives, the loss of ICU space is not a symbolic injury. It is an immediate threat to care.
Damage to critical care space narrows treatment options
The director of Nasser Medical Complex said the strike hit the building in a vertical pattern and caused extensive destruction to the intensive care and surgical departments for both men and women. Those are the units that sustain trauma surgery, postoperative monitoring, ventilatory support, and rescue treatment for unstable patients. When a hospital’s ICU is damaged, the collapse is not limited to a single room or floor; it affects the entire chain of emergency response, from triage to operative care to recovery.
Nasser Hospital is the largest hospital in southern Gaza, which makes any structural loss clinically consequential far beyond the casualties from the strike itself. Surgical teams need sterile space, reliable electrical support, functioning monitors, and protected recovery areas. ICU patients require continuous observation and mechanical support that are difficult to relocate quickly during active bombardment. Even a short interruption can force staff to improvise care in conditions that already fall far below normal standards.
Casualty counts remain fluid amid access limits
An official from the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency told the BBC that at least five people were killed and 20 were injured. Earlier, civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told AFP that six people had died. The difference in those early counts reflects a familiar wartime problem: numbers change as rescue crews move debris, recover the wounded, and reach areas that were initially inaccessible.
The BBC is prevented by Israel from reporting independently from inside the Gaza Strip and cannot verify the details of the incident. Civil Defence recovery work in Gaza operates under the Hamas-run interior ministry, with support from the International Committee of the Red Cross. In a hospital strike, that lack of independent access makes the forensic picture especially hard to complete in real time, even as clinicians face the consequences directly on the ground.
One line from the scene cuts through the political noise. A hospital ward meant for rescue became a casualty site.
Hospitals remain entangled in the war’s military claims
Local activists circulated claims that the strike may have targeted a senior Hamas security figure who was hiding inside the building. Israel often accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes, while Hamas denies those allegations. No immediate response from the Israeli military was available after the strike, and the BBC contacted the Israel Defense Forces for comment.
The recurring dispute over whether hospitals are being used for military activity has become one of the war’s most dangerous fault lines. Even when military claims are unresolved, the medical reality is plain: strikes on healthcare sites place patients, surgeons, nurses, and emergency responders at extreme risk. Hospitals are not resilient abstractions. They are dense clinical ecosystems where blood supplies, operating theatres, oxygen delivery, imaging, and post-op care depend on a tightly linked structure. A hit to one major building can disable multiple services at once.
A hospital already scarred by earlier attacks
Nasser Hospital had already been hit by a double Israeli strike in August 2025, an attack that killed at least 20 people, including journalists and health workers. Repeated damage to the same institution erodes the remaining capacity of Gaza’s health system and makes restoration progressively harder. Walls can be repaired; a depleted workforce, exhausted staff, and broken supply lines are harder to rebuild.
Israeli strikes on Gaza have continued despite a ceasefire agreement in October last year. More than 1,600 people have been killed since then, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN. Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the ceasefire. The result for the medical system is a prolonged state of hemorrhage, where infrastructure, personnel, and access are lost in overlapping waves.
Flooding and displacement intensify the medical emergency
The hospital strike came as Gaza’s humanitarian crisis worsened after heavy rains reportedly flooded tens of thousands of tents housing displaced families. For clinicians, displacement and trauma are not separate crises. Crowded shelters, damaged sanitation, cold exposure, and poor nutrition increase the burden on emergency departments at the very moment hospitals are least able to absorb new patients. A flooded tent camp can send respiratory illness, wound contamination, and hypothermia into already overextended facilities.
The war began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Since then, more than 74,645 people have been killed in Gaza, the health ministry says. Those figures describe a conflict, but they also describe a sustained collapse of civilian health protection. Every strike on a hospital compound makes the next hour of care harder to deliver and the next emergency harder to survive.