An Israeli Strike Hit a Gaza Hospital and Killed Six People

Photo: Akram Huseyn via Unsplash

Shortly after midnight on Thursday, an Israeli strike hit the surgical wing of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Six people were killed. Among the dead were Dr. Rizk Abu Shaira, a 52 year old general surgeon, and a 13 year old boy who was supposed to have surgery. Gaza health authorities said 28 people were wounded, including doctors now in critical condition.

Read that again slowly. A hospital. A surgical wing. A boy waiting for an operation, and the surgeon who was there to save lives, killed in the same strike. There is no version of that sentence that should ever sound normal, and the fact that strikes on hospitals in Gaza have become a repeating headline is itself an indictment of everyone who keeps letting it happen.

Israel said it was targeting Muhammad Abu Ismail, the commander of the Hamas Khan Younis Brigade, along with other militants it said were hiding inside the hospital. By the reporting so far, that commander was not among the dead. The people who are confirmed dead are a surgeon, a child, and patients. A working hospital full of wounded people paid the price for a target who apparently was not even there.

Footage from inside the hospital showed two bombs were used, and one of them failed to explode. It was identified as a United States manufactured GBU 39 bomb, the kind supplied to Israel with American support. That detail matters for Americans reading this at home. Our tax dollars and our weapons are part of this story whether Washington wants to admit it or not, and every official who calls this a blank check arrangement should have to look at these pictures.

Why it matters is simple. Hospitals are protected for a reason that every civilized nation once agreed on... the wounded, the sick, doctors, and children on operating tables are not combatants. Nasser is one of the main hospitals still operating in southern Gaza, serving people who have almost nowhere else left to go. Every strike like this one leaves survivors with fewer doctors, fewer beds, and fewer places to run when the next one lands.

The United States led Board of Peace, which is supposed to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza, called on Israel and Hamas to uphold their commitments and protect civilians after this strike. Words like that are the bare minimum. A ceasefire that still buries surgeons and children is not protecting anybody, and leaders who fund and arm this war while issuing statements are part of the failure.

What happens next has to be more than another round of concern. There must be a real accounting of who ordered this strike, what proof existed for the target, and why a surgical wing was hit at all. And in Washington, the incoming Democratic majority should treat this as exactly what it is... evidence that unconditional military aid has failed. Six people are dead who should be alive today. Absolutely disgusting is not strong enough, and it has to stop.

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