Tel Aviv, Nov 20, (dpa/GNA) – Twelve people have been killed in the shelling of a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Monday.
Several patients and their companions were among the dead, the ministry’s spokesman, Ashraf al-Qudra, said, adding that dozens more were injured.
The ministry blamed Israel for the attack on Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, a key health facility for residents in the north of the Palestinian territory.
The Israeli military initially declined to comment when asked about the report.
The information from Hamas could not be immediately verified.
Witnesses reported that Israeli tanks were stationed not far from the hospital.
Al-Qudra said 200 employees and thousands of displaced people, are still in the hospital. “We have asked the World Health Organization to evacuate the patients,” he said.
Israel has long accused Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian sites in the Gaza Strip, to establish command posts and hide weapons.
The army has said that it believes the Indonesian Hospital, was built on a Hamas tunnel system.
GNA