Children queuing at Gaza health center killed in Israeli strike, medics say

By Abeer Salman, Jeremy Diamond and Ibrahim Dahman, CNN

(CNN) — An Israeli strike killed 15 people, including women and children, gathered outside a health center in the central Gazan city of Deir Al Balah on Thursday, according to medical staff and officials in the enclave.

The Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza said eight of those killed in the strike were children, with the youngest under two years old, according to his mother, and the oldest aged 14. The hospital said three women and four men were also killed.

In footage obtained by CNN, several children were seen lying motionless and others appeared injured amid the sound of screams. Another video showed several children, bloodied and lying motionless, being transported on a cart.

The Israeli military said it was targeting a Hamas militant who took part in the group’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

“The (Israel Defense Forces) is aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals in the area. The incident is under review. The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible,” the Israeli military said in a statement to CNN.

The youngest victim of the strike was 17-month-old Mohammad, whose mother Donia Halhoul told CNN she had been waiting to receive food aid for her children from the health center when the deadly strikes landed.

“I’m in so much pain all over my body, but what hurt me more is that Mohammad died hungry while I was waiting to get him and his siblings nutritional supplements,” she told CNN by phone from the hospital.

”He was so young that he had only started to say a few words before he was killed. I was so happy to hear his first words.”

Her nine-year-old remains in critical condition, she also said.

The director general of Gaza’s health ministry said the strike hit near a medical center dispensing children’s formula to women.

Project HOPE, an American aid organization, said the strike occurred “directly in front” of one of its health clinics, where people were waiting to receive treatment for “malnutrition, infections, chronic illnesses, and more.”

The organization’s CEO Rabih Torbay told CNN the location of the clinic had been shared with the Israeli military. “It was a deconflicted site,” Torbay said.

“Project HOPE’s health clinics are a place of refuge in Gaza where people bring their small children, women access pregnancy and postpartum care, people receive treatment for malnutrition, and more,” he said in a statement.

“Yet, this morning, innocent families were mercilessly attacked as they stood in line waiting for the doors to open,” he continued. “Horrified and heartbroken cannot properly communicate how we feel anymore.”

Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, MSF’s deputy medical coordinator for Palestine, said this is not the first time health facilities have been targeted directly or indirectly. Speaking to CNN from Al Mawasi in southern Gaza, Mughaisib stressed that there has been no improvement in access to aid and medicine despite Israel’s partial lifting of the blockade on Gaza.

“Every day there is hundreds of people killed and injured when they are going (to the aid distribution points) to pick their food kits or parcels,” he said adding, “In the market you don’t find food. I mean, the bakeries are closed.”

Mughaisib told CNN Gaza’s population is “totally exhausted, broken, tired,” saying “hope is really a fragile word in Gaza.”

Israel has intensified its strikes and expanded a ground operation on parts of Gaza as negotiators in Doha continue talks to release hostages, establish a temporary truce and allow the entry of more humanitarian aid to the devastated strip.

Almost 3,000 Palestinians were killed over the past month in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry.

Meanwhile, Hamas have continued conducting guerilla-style attacks against the Israeli military, killing more than 20 soldiers in different parts of the strip over the same period, including five soldiers killed this week in the northern city of Beit Hanoun.

On Thursday, a 20-year-old Israeli man was killed in an attack at the Gush Etzion junction south of Jerusalem, according to the Israeli military and medical services.

The IDF said two Palestinian “terrorists” had “conducted a combined shooting and stabbing attack” before being “eliminated.” Gush Etzion is a settlement cluster in the occupied West Bank.

A security source later told CNN that the two attackers were Palestinian Authority policemen with no prior records in Israel or prior arrests. CNN has reached out to the Palestinian Authority for comment.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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