Israel launched air strikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, Gaza officials said, as reported by Reuters.
"The Israeli occupation launched simultaneous strikes on a number of hospitals during the past hours," Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra told Al Jazeera, adding that they targeted the courtyard of Al Shifa, the biggest hospital in Gaza City, and there were casualties.
He said the Al-Rantisi Pediatric Hospital and Al-Nasr Children's Hospital were being bombarded on Friday and that strikes on the hospital grounds at Al-Rantisi had set vehicles on fire but were now partly extinguished, Reuters reported.
Dr Mohammad Abu Selmia, general director of Gaza City's main hospital, told the Associated Press that at least one shell had landed very close to the hospital at around dawn Thursday, resulting in only a few people sustaining minor injuries.
Scores of wounded people are being treated at the Al-Shifa Hospital following overnight Israeli strikes and shelling. He said it would've been a “catastrophe” had the shell landed any closer, adding that conditions at the hospital are “disastrous in every sense of the word.”
Israel's ground forces in the Gaza Strip have been zeroing in on the Hamas militants' vast tunnel network beneath the enclave. They claimed on Monday that they had caused significant damage to "underground and aboveground infrastructure" in overnight strikes.
The Israeli military has stated that many of Hamas' tunnels, command centers, and rocket launchers are situated in close proximity to schools, hospitals, and humanitarian institutions in northern Gaza. It is also feared that these strikes and operations could harm the hostages, who are believed to be held in the tunnels.
"Underground, long tunnels that connect to hospitals and schools are connected by them — they have communication rooms, ammunition warehouses, places to stay and everything in order to be used as a br of terrorism to harm the citizens of the State of Israel and the soldiers of the IDF," Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said at a press briefing on Tuesday, NBC reported in a translation from Jewish.
(With inputs from AP)