Israeli forces advanced deeper into the Gaza Strip on Friday and blew up the only specialized cancer hospital in the war-torn territory, as Israeli leaders vowed to capture more land until Hamas releases its remaining hostages.
The hospital was located in the Netzarim Corridor, a band that splits Gaza in two and was controlled by Israeli troops for most of the 17-month-long war. Israel moved to retake the corridor this week shortly after breaking the ceasefire with Hamas. The truce had delivered relative calm to Gaza since late January and facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages.
The Israeli military said it struck the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which was inaccessible to doctors and patients during the war, because Hamas militants were operating in the site. Turkey, which helped build and fund the hospital, said Israeli troops at one point used it as a base.
Dr. Zaki Al-Zaqzouq, head of the hospital’s oncology department, said a medical team visited the facility during the ceasefire and found that, while it had suffered damage, some facilities remained in good condition.
“I cannot fathom what could be gained from bombing a hospital that served as a lifeline for so many patients,” he said in a statement issued by the aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned the hospital’s destruction and accused Israel of deliberately “rendering Gaza uninhabitable and forcibly displacing the Palestinian people.”
Hospitals can lose their protected status under international law if they are used for military purposes, but any operations against them must be proportional. Human rights groups and U.N.-backed experts have accused accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.
Israel warns it will escalate military operations
Israel’s renewed military offensive in the Gaza Strip threatens to be even deadlier and more destructive than the last, as it pursues wider aims with far fewer constraints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that his country would carry out operations in Gaza “with increasing intensity” until Hamas frees the 59 hostages it holds — 24 of whom are believed alive.
“The more Hamas continues its refusal to release the kidnapped, the more territory it will lose to Israel,” Katz said.
The Israeli military said Friday its forces were planning fresh assaults into three neighborhoods west of Gaza City, and issued warnings on social media for Palestinians to evacuate the areas.
The warnings came shortly after the military said it intercepted two rockets fired from northern Gaza that set off sirens in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon. Hamas had also fired three rockets the previous day, causing no casualties, in its first attack since Israel ended the ceasefire.
Israeli forces advance in Gaza’s north and south
Israeli troops had moved Thursday toward the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern border city of Rafah, and resumed blocking Palestinians from entering northern Gaza, including Gaza City.
Displaced Palestinians fled northern Gaza along a coastal road Friday carrying their belongings, firewood and other items on horse-drawn carts.
A strike east of Gaza City on Friday killed a couple and their two children, plus two additional children who weren’t related to them, according to witnesses and a local hospital. The Israeli army said it struck a militant in a Gaza City building and took steps to minimize civilian harm. It was not immediately clear if the army was referring to the same strike.
And in the southern city of Rafah, Palestinian municipal officials said Israeli bombardments forced residents to move outdoors in rainy weather, deepening their suffering.
Court delays Netanyahu’s firing of Israeli security official
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s push to fire the country’s domestic security chief has deepened a power struggle focused largely over who bears responsibility for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza. It also could set the stage for a crisis over the country’s division of powers.
Hours after Netanyahu’s Cabinet unanimously approved the firing Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet security service, the Supreme Court ordered a temporary halt to his dismissal until an appeal can be heard no later than April 8. Netanyahu’s office had said Bar’s dismissal was effective April 10, but that it could come earlier.
Israel’s attorney general has ruled that the Cabinet has no legal basis to dismiss Bar. However, Netanyahu sounded defiant in a social media post Friday evening, saying: “The State of Israel is a state of law and according to the law, the Israeli government decides who will be the head of the Shin Bet.”
Critics say the move is a power grab by the prime minister against an independent-minded civil servant, and tens of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated in support of Bar, including outside Netanyahu’s residence on Friday.
A Shin Bet report into the October 2023 attack acknowledged failures by the security agency. But it also said policies by Netanyahu’s government created the conditions for the attack.
Netanyahu has resisted calls for an official state commission of inquiry into the attack and has tried to blame the failures on the army and security agencies.
Hundreds killed in Gaza since ceasefire collapsed
Around 600 Palestinians have been killed since Israel relaunched the war with a wave of predawn airstrikes across Gaza on Tuesday, which came as many families slept or prepared to start the daily fast for the holy month of Ramadan.
Israel had already cut off the supply of food, fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians, aiming to pressure Hamas over the ceasefire negotiations.
The attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Most of the hostages have been freed in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the bodies of dozens more.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 49,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were militants, but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.
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Rising reported from Bangkok; Mednick reported from Tel Aviv.
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