GAZA CITY (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel targeted three Gaza hospitals within a few hours on Friday, martyring and wounding several patients and people seeking shelter from airstrikes, the Palestinian health ministry said.
At least 15 people were martyred in the bombing on Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, according to Al Jazeera. Video footage circulating online showed bloody and chaotic scenes.
Meanwhile, the courtyards of the Indonesian hospital and Al-Quds hospital were also hit. All three hospitals have been places Palestinians have sought shelter from Israeli attacks.
Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesman for the Palestinian health ministry, said jets struck a convoy of critically wounded people at the gates of Al-Shifa hospital, who were in ambulances on their way to the south of Gaza.
He said he asked the Red Cross to accompany the convoy to ensure its safety earlier in the day.
As Zionist ground forces surrounded Gaza City and moved deeper into the coastal enclave’s north, Palestinians leaving the city were martyred on the Al-Rasheed road, Gaza’s coastal artery. Dead bodies were seen strewn across the tarmac.
At least 9,227 people, including 3,826 children, have been martyred in the four-week-long Israeli invasion of Gaza, according to local health officials.
Among the targets hit in Gaza on Friday was a cemetery, with local media reporting at least Palestinian seven workers there martyred.
Israeli tanks and troops have met fierce resistance from Hamas fighters using mortars and hit-and-run attacks from tunnels to fight off Tel Aviv’s ground invasion of Gaza City after nearly four weeks of bombardments.
Fighters of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad were emerging from tunnels to fire at tanks, then disappearing back into the network, residents said and videos from both groups showed, in guerrilla-style operations against Israeli troops.
“They never stopped bombing Gaza City all night, the house never stopped shaking,” Reuters quoted an unnamed man living there. “But in the morning we discover the Israeli forces are still outside the city, in the outskirts and that means the resistance is heavier than they expected.”
“This is certainly terrain that is more heavily sown than in the past with minefields and booby-traps. Hamas has learned and prepared itself well,” said Brigadier General Iddo Mizrahi, chief of Israel’s military engineers.
The Zionist army said Palestinian fighters killed a commander of an armored brigade’s battalion in Gaza. Lt Col Salman Habaka is the most senior Israeli soldier to be killed since the ground invasion escalated on Tuesday.
The Israeli army confirmed at least 24 soldiers have been killed in the clashes since Tuesday, but Gaza fighters the death toll among the Zionist troops is much higher. At least 260 Israeli soldiers have been wounded in the Gaza clashes, according to the Israeli army radio.
An Iraqi resistance group said it “targeted” Israeli positions in the city of Eilat on the Dead Sea.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an armed faction formed in the wake of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, claimed the attack in a statement on Friday.
“In support of our people in Gaza, and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women and the elderly, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted this morning a target in the occupied Umm al-Rashash,” the group said, using the Arabic name for Eilat.

Hezbollah said in a statement its fighters launched 19 simultaneous strikes on Israeli army positions on Thursday using guided missiles, artillery and other weapons.
It said two drones packed with explosives struck an army command position in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area at the border.
The armed wing of Hamas called the Qassam Brigades in Lebanon said it had fired 12 missile towards the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona and its vicinity. The group said the attack was a response to the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.
Since Israel cut off all water, electricity, fuel and food supplies off for Gaza on October 9, Palestinians have been going to the sea to wash and clean their belongings, according to Reuters. The seawater is causing Palestinians skin irritations in the absence of any clean water.
A lack of fuel and the damage on roads has meant medical staff are being forced to travel around on bikes to reach the overwhelming number of patients, the agency added.
Meanwhile, U.S. drones have been spotted in the sky purportedly trying to locate the 240 captives taken by Palestinian fighters on October 7.
The United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that 72 of its staff have been killed in Gaza by Israel since the start of the war. The French Institute in Gaza was hit by an airstrike on Friday, the French foreign ministry said.
Israeli raids and drone also strikes intensified in the West Bank, with nine Palestinians martyred overnight, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The raids took place in Jenin, Al-Khalil, Nablus and Qalandia.
West of Ramallah, a 33-year-old was shot dead by an Israeli soldier, while he was on his way home from Friday prayers. Eyewitnesses said the worshippers didn’t pose any danger to the soldiers.
According to local media, Israeli forces have also cut off the water supply in the occupied West Bank village of Beit Lid, leaving 8,000 people without water.
Israeli forces and settlers have martyred at least 141 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war.
In occupied East Al-Quds, meanwhile, Israeli forces restricted worshippers from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque for Friday prayers, and used tear gas to disperse Palestinians in the Wadi al-Joz neighborhood.
When hostilities began, Israel detained an estimated 4,500 laborers from Gaza who were in the country on work permits.
On Friday, some of them had finally been released and were made to walk on foot for about 6km into the enclave, despite the bombardment and ground offensive.
Several of them said they had been tortured and subjected to various forms of abuse by the Israeli military, including being stripped naked and having boiling water thrown on them.
The Zionist regime has received the staunch support of Western governments during the war. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to Occupied Palestine for the second time in less than a month on Friday morning.
He reiterated “and made clear Israel’s right to defend itself,” and said that steps must be taken to prevent regional escalation.
However, Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar described Israel’s war on Gaza as “something approaching revenge”, in what seems to be some of the strongest criticism against the Zionist regime used by a European leader.
The United Arab Emirates also weighed in, warning about the war expanding into a broader regional crisis, and saying it was working “relentlessly” to facilitate a ceasefire for humanitarian purposes.