Two Gaza City hospitals have been taken out of service due to Israel’s escalation of its ground offensive and damage caused by continued Israeli bombing, the enclave’s Health Ministry said, as tanks advanced deeper into the territory.
The ministry said in its statement that Al-Rantissi Children’s Hospital was badly damaged a few days ago by an Israeli bombardment. At the same time, it reported Israeli attacks in the vicinity of the nearby Eye Hospital, which forced the suspension of services there, too.
“The occupation deliberately and systematically targets the health-care system in the Gaza governorate as part of its genocidal policy against the Strip,” it said.
“None of the facilities or hospitals have safe access routes that allow patients and the wounded to reach them.”
There was no immediate Israeli comment.
Palestinians search for victims at a residential building hit in an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Monday. (Ebrahim Hajjaj/Reuters)
Nearly two years into the war, Israel describes Gaza City as the last bastion of Hamas. The Israeli military has been demolishing housing blocks it says were being used by the militant group since Israel launched its ground assault on the city this month.
On Monday, residents said Israeli tanks had advanced deeper into the Sheikh Radwan area and Jala Street in northern Gaza City, where the two hospitals are located, while in Tel Al-Hawa in the southeast, tanks have pushed deeper in the direction of the western parts of the city.
They said Israeli forces had used explosive-laden vehicles, detonated remotely, to blow up dozens of houses in the two areas.
At least 25 killed in latest Israeli fire
In a meeting on Monday at the military headquarters in Tel Aviv with Defence Minister Israel Katz and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his determination to eliminate Hamas, secure the release of the remaining hostages and ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel, his office said.
The offensive has alarmed the families of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. Twenty of those 48 captives are thought to still be alive.
Hamas’s military wing released a video on Monday of Israeli hostage Alon Ohel. It was not immediately clear when the video was recorded. Ohel, 24, was last seen in a video released by Hamas on Sept. 5.
A representative said that Ohel’s family had consented to the media identifying him, but had not given permission for the video to be published. The video was released on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
WATCH | UN inquiry finds Israel committed genocide in Gaza: 
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, UN inquiry finds
On the same day a ground offensive was launched in Gaza City, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry report concluded Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a finding emphatically denied by Israeli officials.
Rights groups have condemned Hamas and another militant group in Gaza for releasing videos of hostages, calling it inhumane treatment that amounts to a war crime. Israeli officials have described the videos as psychological warfare.
Meanwhile, local health authorities said at least 25 people had been killed by Israeli fire on Monday across the enclave, most of them in Gaza City.
Last week, a United Nations inquiry found Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel called the finding biased and “scandalous.”
The Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel killed 1,200 people, and 251 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s two-year-long campaign has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to local health authorities, and has spread famine, demolished most buildings and displaced most of the territory’s population, in many cases multiple times.
3 children among 5 killed after Israeli strike in Lebanon
An Israeli drone strike killed five people, including three children, in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil on Sunday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
Israel has frequently targeted what it calls Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon despite a U.S.-brokered truce between Lebanon and Israel, which took effect in November following more than a year of conflict sparked by war in Gaza.
Lebanon’s state news agency said the strike hit a motorbike and a vehicle, wounding two others.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement that a father and his three children were among the dead, with the mother wounded.
The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah member in the strike but that “several uninvolved civilians were killed.”
“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible. The incident is under review,” it said in a statement.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, in a post on X, described the attack as a “blatant crime against civilians and a message of intimidation aimed at our people returning to their villages in the south.”
Lebanon is under pressure from the United States, Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah’s domestic rivals to disarm the Iranian-backed group. Hezbollah has said it would be a serious misstep even to discuss disarmament while Israel is continuing airstrikes on Lebanon and occupying swaths of territory in its south.