Israeli snipers kill 21 civilians outside Gaza’s besieged Nasser Hospital
Al Jazeera
Rights groups say repeated attacks on medical facilities, doctors and ambulances must be investigated for war crimes.
Israeli snipers have killed at least 21 Palestinians after they opened fire on displaced civilians trying to reach Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah, said on Friday that snipers had surrounded the hospital and were “shooting at every moving object” as people were trying to reach it from two densely populated residential neighbourhoods near the facility.
“The area around the hospital is very dangerous, and it has turned into a combat zone,” he said, noting that the hospital is the only place right now in Khan Younis that has some water left.
Rights groups said the Israeli military’s repeated attacks on medical facilities, doctors, nurses, medics and ambulances must be investigated for war crimes.
“Hospitals and other medical facilities are civilian objects that have special protections under international humanitarian law or the laws of war,” Human Rights Watch noted.
