Israeli strike hits ambulances near Gaza hospital

The Hamas government in Gaza said Friday an Israeli strike hit a convoy of ambulances, which the health ministry said killed multiple people near the territory’s largest hospital.
A government statement said Israeli forces targeted “a convoy of ambulances which was transporting the wounded” from Gaza City towards Rafah in the south.
The health ministry announced “several citizens were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike at the entrance to Al-Shifa hospital” in Gaza City.
An AFP journalist at the scene saw multiple bodies beside a damaged ambulance.
Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza, said the ambulance was part of a convoy that Israel targeted leaving Al-Shifa Hospital.
Qidra said Israel had targeted the convoy of ambulances in more than one location, including at Al-Shifa Hospital gate and at Ansar Square a kilometre away.
Earlier Friday, Qidra said ambulances would send critically injured Palestinians who urgently need to be taken to Egypt to be treated from besieged Gaza City to the south of the enclave.
Hamas and Al-Shifa hospital authorities have denied the facility is used as a base by fighters.
Video shared on social media, which Reuters has verified, showed people lying in blood next to an ambulance with flashing lights on a city street as people rushed to help.
Another video showed three ambulances standing in a line, with about a dozen people lying either motionless or barely moving next to them. Blood was pooled nearby.
World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “utterly shocked” by the deadly Israeli strike on the ambulance.
Ghebreyesus said he was “utterly shocked by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients close to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, leading to deaths, injuries and damage”.
“We reiterate: patients, health workers, facilities and ambulances must be protected at all times. Always,” the WHO chief wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for the Palestinian territories, expressed “alarm” over the strike “as patients were being evacuated to find safety”.
Al-Shifa hospital is facing severe overcrowding, with a bed occupancy rate of 164% according to the WHO.
Some 16 hospitals across Gaza are no longer functioning because of damage from strikes and a lack of fuel, the health ministry said.
The WHO warned Friday that the fuel shortage “immediately risks the lives” of the wounded and other patients.
More than 23,500 people have been wounded across Gaza in four weeks of war, the health ministry said, while the death toll has surpassed 9,200.