Israel military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted a Hamas camera
Israel statement was issued as part of an initial inquiry into Monday’s attack on Nasser Hospital, which killed 20 people, including several journalists
The Israeli military said Tuesday that its double strike on a Gaza hospital that killed 20 people targeted what it believed was a Hamas surveillance camera. But the first strike killed a cameraman from the Reuters news agency doing a live television shot, according to witnesses and health officials.
The military released its initial findings into the strike, offering no immediate explanation for striking twice and no evidence for an assertion that six of the dead were militants, including two who were identified by their employers as a healthcare worker at the hospital and an emergency services driver. The dead also included five journalists.
The military said the back-to-back strikes on southern Gaza’s largest hospital were ordered because soldiers believed militants were using the camera to observe Israeli forces. But its account appeared to contradict witnesses at the scene of Monday’s attack on Nasser Hospital.
A senior Hamas official denied that Hamas was operating a camera at the hospital.
“If this claim was true, there are many means to neutralise this camera without targeting a healthcare facility with a tank shell,” Bassem Naim, a member of the group’s political bureau, told Associated Press in a phone interview.
An initial strike hit a top floor of one of the hospital’s buildings. Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri was killed in that blast while filming from the site, according to a fellow journalist and a doctor at the hospital.