Israeli airstrike kills Palestinian journalist, Hassan Aslih inside Gaza hospital
An Israeli airstrike on the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis has resulted in the death of a Palestinian photojournalist who was being treated inside Nasser Hospital.
Hassan Aslih, was receiving treatment for injuries from a previous strike when a drone targeted the hospital's emergency and surgical departments.
The strike killed at least one other person and injured more than a dozen, according to aid group Médecins Sans Frontières.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed it had conducted a 'targeted strike on key terrorists' at the hospital but did not name Aslih.
The military has accused Hamas of operating command centers inside medical facilities, including Nasser Hospital.
Hamas denies using hospitals for military purposes.
Aslih had been hospitalized for nearly a month after being wounded in an April strike on the same facility, which killed another journalist, Helmi al-Faqawi.
The Israeli military has previously accused Aslih of involvement in the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, citing footage he published from inside Israeli territory.
Gaza's media office has denied these allegations, calling them unfounded and politically motivated.
Aslih was a freelance journalist who worked with local and international outlets and had a significant social media following for his coverage of the conflict.
Later the same day, an Israeli airstrike hit Gaza European Hospital in southern Gaza, killing at least 16 and injuring 70, according to local health authorities.
The IDF claimed it was targeting a Hamas command center located beneath the hospital. Hamas denies this.
The United Nations human rights office has condemned repeated Israeli strikes on and near hospitals, warning they could constitute war crimes.
Aid organizations, including Médecins Sans Frontières, have called for an end to attacks on medical infrastructure.
The death toll among journalists in the conflict continues to rise.
According to the International Federation of Journalists, at least 160 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war began.
A report from Brown University's Watson Institute places the toll at over 232, calling it the deadliest conflict for journalists in history.
Gaza's media office puts the number even higher and accuses Israel of deliberately targeting media personnel — allegations Israel denies.
Since the October 7 attacks, Israel's military response has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, and devastated much of the territory's infrastructure.
A blockade on aid since March 2 has pushed the region to the brink of famine.
A UN-backed food security monitor and the World Health Organization have warned that the situation poses a long-term threat to an entire generation in Gaza due to hunger and malnutrition.
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Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Inside the secret tunnel where Israel says a senior Hamas leader died
Two feet wide and less than six feet tall, the tunnel led deep beneath a major hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. The underground air bore the stench of what smelled like human remains. After walking about 40 metres along the tunnel, we found the likely cause. In a tiny room to which the tunnel led, the floor was stained with blood. It was here, according to the Israeli military, that Mohammed Sinwar – one of Hamas' top militant commanders – was killed last month after a nearby barrage of Israeli strikes. What we saw in that dark and narrow tunnel is one of the war's biggest Rorschach tests, the embodiment of a broader narrative battle between Israelis and Palestinians over how the conflict should be portrayed. The military escorted a reporter from The New York Times to the tunnel on Sunday afternoon, as part of a brief and controlled visit for international journalists that the Israelis hoped would prove that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure as a shield for militant activity. To Palestinians, Israel's attack on and subsequent capture of the hospital compound highlighted its disregard for civilian activity. Last month, the military ordered the hospital's staff and patients to leave the compound, along with the residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Then, officials said, they bored a huge hole, about nine metres deep, in a courtyard within the hospital grounds. Soldiers used that hole to gain access to the tunnel and retrieve Sinwar's body, and they later escorted journalists there so we could see what they called his final hiding place. There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself, so we lowered ourselves into the Israeli-made cavity using a rope. To join this controlled tour, the NYT agreed not to photograph most soldiers' faces or publish geographic details that would put them in immediate physical danger. To the Israelis who brought us there, this hiding place, directly underneath the emergency department of the European Gaza Hospital, is emblematic of how Hamas has consistently endangered civilians and broken international law by directing its military operations from the cover of hospitals and schools. Hamas has also dug tunnels underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and a United Nations complex elsewhere in that city. 'We were dragged by Hamas to this point,' Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said at the hospital on Sunday afternoon. 'If they weren't building their infrastructure under the hospitals, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't attack this hospital.' Defrin said Israel had tried to minimise damage to the hospital by striking the area around its buildings, without a direct hit on the medical facilities themselves. 'The aim was not to damage the hospital and, as much as we could, to avoid collateral damage,' he said. To the Palestinians who were forced from here, the Israeli attack on Sinwar embodied Israel's willingness to prioritise the destruction of Hamas over the protection of civilian life and infrastructure, particularly the health system. According to the World Health Organisation, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza's 36 hospitals. Many, like the European Gaza Hospital, are now out of service, fuelling accusations from rights groups and foreign governments – strongly denied by the Israelis – that Israel is engaged in genocide, in part by wrecking the Palestinian health system. Loading 'It's morally and legally unacceptable, but Israel thinks it is above the law,' Dr Salah al-Hams, the hospital spokesperson, said in a phone interview from another part of southern Gaza. Although Israel targeted the periphery of the hospital site, leaving the hospital buildings standing, al-Hams said the strikes had wounded 10 people within the compound, damaged its water and sewage systems and dislodged part of its roof. It killed 23 people in buildings beyond its perimeter, he said, 17 more than were reported the day of the attack. The tremors caused by the strikes were like an 'earthquake,' al-Hams said. Al-Hams said he had been unaware of any tunnels beneath the hospital. Even if they were there, he said, 'This does not justify the attack. Israel should have found other ways to eliminate any wanted commander. There were a thousand other ways to do it.' Loading Our journey to the hospital revealed much about the current dynamics of the war in Gaza. In a roughly 20-minute ride from the Israeli border, we saw no Palestinians – the result of Israel's decision to order the residents of southern Gaza to abandon their homes and head west to the sea. Many buildings were simply piles of rubble, destroyed either by Israeli strikes and demolitions or Hamas' booby traps. Here and there, some buildings survived, more or less intact; on one balcony, someone had left a tidy line of potted cactuses. We drove in open-top jeeps, a sign that across this swath of south-eastern Gaza, the Israeli military no longer fears being ambushed by Hamas fighters. Until at least the Salah al-Din highway, the territory's main north-south artery, the Israeli military seemed to be in complete command after the expansion of its ground campaign in March. The European Gaza Hospital and the tunnel beneath it are among the places that now appear to be exclusively under Israeli control. Under the laws of war, a medical facility is considered a protected site that can be attacked only in rare cases. If a medical site is used for military purposes, it could be regarded as a legitimate target, but only if the risk to civilians is proportional to the military advantage created by the attack. The Israeli military said it had tried to limit harm to civilians by striking only around the edges of the hospital compound. But international legal experts said that any assessment of the strike's legality needed to take into account its effect on the wider health system in southern Gaza. In a territory where many hospitals are already not operational, experts said, it is harder to find legal justification for strikes that put the remaining hospitals out of service, even if militants hide beneath them. When we entered the tunnel, we found it almost entirely intact. The crammed room where Sinwar and four fellow militants were said to have died was stained with blood, but its walls appeared undamaged. The mattresses, clothes and bedsheets did not appear to have been dislodged by the explosions, and an Israeli rifle – stolen earlier in the war, the soldiers said – dangled from a hook in the corner. It was not immediately clear how Sinwar was killed, and Defrin said he could not provide a definitive answer. He suggested that Sinwar and his allies may have suffocated in the aftermath of the strikes or been knocked over by a shock wave unleashed by explosions. If gases released by such explosions intentionally poisoned Sinwar, it would raise legal questions, said international law experts. 'It would be an unlawful use of a conventional bomb – a generally lawful weapon – if the intent is to kill with the asphyxiating gases released by that bomb,' said Sarah Harrison, a former lawyer at the US Defence Department and an analyst at the International Crisis Group. Defrin denied any such intent. 'This is something that I have to emphasise here, as a Jew first and then as a human being: We don't use gas as weapons,' he said. In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to check for traps. Defrin denied the practice. The tunnel was excavated by Israelis, he said.
The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
Inside the secret tunnel where Israel says a senior Hamas leader died
Two feet wide and less than six feet tall, the tunnel led deep beneath a major hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. The underground air bore the stench of what smelled like human remains. After walking about 40 metres along the tunnel, we found the likely cause. In a tiny room to which the tunnel led, the floor was stained with blood. It was here, according to the Israeli military, that Mohammed Sinwar – one of Hamas' top militant commanders – was killed last month after a nearby barrage of Israeli strikes. What we saw in that dark and narrow tunnel is one of the war's biggest Rorschach tests, the embodiment of a broader narrative battle between Israelis and Palestinians over how the conflict should be portrayed. The military escorted a reporter from The New York Times to the tunnel on Sunday afternoon, as part of a brief and controlled visit for international journalists that the Israelis hoped would prove that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure as a shield for militant activity. To Palestinians, Israel's attack on and subsequent capture of the hospital compound highlighted its disregard for civilian activity. Last month, the military ordered the hospital's staff and patients to leave the compound, along with the residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Then, officials said, they bored a huge hole, about nine metres deep, in a courtyard within the hospital grounds. Soldiers used that hole to gain access to the tunnel and retrieve Sinwar's body, and they later escorted journalists there so we could see what they called his final hiding place. There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself, so we lowered ourselves into the Israeli-made cavity using a rope. To join this controlled tour, the NYT agreed not to photograph most soldiers' faces or publish geographic details that would put them in immediate physical danger. To the Israelis who brought us there, this hiding place, directly underneath the emergency department of the European Gaza Hospital, is emblematic of how Hamas has consistently endangered civilians and broken international law by directing its military operations from the cover of hospitals and schools. Hamas has also dug tunnels underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and a United Nations complex elsewhere in that city. 'We were dragged by Hamas to this point,' Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said at the hospital on Sunday afternoon. 'If they weren't building their infrastructure under the hospitals, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't attack this hospital.' Defrin said Israel had tried to minimise damage to the hospital by striking the area around its buildings, without a direct hit on the medical facilities themselves. 'The aim was not to damage the hospital and, as much as we could, to avoid collateral damage,' he said. To the Palestinians who were forced from here, the Israeli attack on Sinwar embodied Israel's willingness to prioritise the destruction of Hamas over the protection of civilian life and infrastructure, particularly the health system. According to the World Health Organisation, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza's 36 hospitals. Many, like the European Gaza Hospital, are now out of service, fuelling accusations from rights groups and foreign governments – strongly denied by the Israelis – that Israel is engaged in genocide, in part by wrecking the Palestinian health system. Loading 'It's morally and legally unacceptable, but Israel thinks it is above the law,' Dr Salah al-Hams, the hospital spokesperson, said in a phone interview from another part of southern Gaza. Although Israel targeted the periphery of the hospital site, leaving the hospital buildings standing, al-Hams said the strikes had wounded 10 people within the compound, damaged its water and sewage systems and dislodged part of its roof. It killed 23 people in buildings beyond its perimeter, he said, 17 more than were reported the day of the attack. The tremors caused by the strikes were like an 'earthquake,' al-Hams said. Al-Hams said he had been unaware of any tunnels beneath the hospital. Even if they were there, he said, 'This does not justify the attack. Israel should have found other ways to eliminate any wanted commander. There were a thousand other ways to do it.' Loading Our journey to the hospital revealed much about the current dynamics of the war in Gaza. In a roughly 20-minute ride from the Israeli border, we saw no Palestinians – the result of Israel's decision to order the residents of southern Gaza to abandon their homes and head west to the sea. Many buildings were simply piles of rubble, destroyed either by Israeli strikes and demolitions or Hamas' booby traps. Here and there, some buildings survived, more or less intact; on one balcony, someone had left a tidy line of potted cactuses. We drove in open-top jeeps, a sign that across this swath of south-eastern Gaza, the Israeli military no longer fears being ambushed by Hamas fighters. Until at least the Salah al-Din highway, the territory's main north-south artery, the Israeli military seemed to be in complete command after the expansion of its ground campaign in March. The European Gaza Hospital and the tunnel beneath it are among the places that now appear to be exclusively under Israeli control. Under the laws of war, a medical facility is considered a protected site that can be attacked only in rare cases. If a medical site is used for military purposes, it could be regarded as a legitimate target, but only if the risk to civilians is proportional to the military advantage created by the attack. The Israeli military said it had tried to limit harm to civilians by striking only around the edges of the hospital compound. But international legal experts said that any assessment of the strike's legality needed to take into account its effect on the wider health system in southern Gaza. In a territory where many hospitals are already not operational, experts said, it is harder to find legal justification for strikes that put the remaining hospitals out of service, even if militants hide beneath them. When we entered the tunnel, we found it almost entirely intact. The crammed room where Sinwar and four fellow militants were said to have died was stained with blood, but its walls appeared undamaged. The mattresses, clothes and bedsheets did not appear to have been dislodged by the explosions, and an Israeli rifle – stolen earlier in the war, the soldiers said – dangled from a hook in the corner. It was not immediately clear how Sinwar was killed, and Defrin said he could not provide a definitive answer. He suggested that Sinwar and his allies may have suffocated in the aftermath of the strikes or been knocked over by a shock wave unleashed by explosions. If gases released by such explosions intentionally poisoned Sinwar, it would raise legal questions, said international law experts. 'It would be an unlawful use of a conventional bomb – a generally lawful weapon – if the intent is to kill with the asphyxiating gases released by that bomb,' said Sarah Harrison, a former lawyer at the US Defence Department and an analyst at the International Crisis Group. Defrin denied any such intent. 'This is something that I have to emphasise here, as a Jew first and then as a human being: We don't use gas as weapons,' he said. In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to check for traps. Defrin denied the practice. The tunnel was excavated by Israelis, he said.
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
Trump must tell Netanyahu 'enough is enough': ex-Israeli PM
US President Donald Trump should tell Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu "enough is enough", a former Israeli prime minister told AFP, denouncing the continuation of the war in Gaza as a "crime" and insisting a two-state solution is the only way to end the conflict. Ehud Olmert, prime minister between 2006-2009, said in an interview in Paris that the United States has more influence on the Israeli government "than all the other powers put together" and that Trump can "make a difference". He said Netanyahu "failed completely" as a leader by not preventing the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that sparked the war. He said while the international community accepted Israel's right to self-defence after October 7, this changed when Netanyahu spurned chances to end the war in March and instead ramped up operations. Netanyahu "has his personal interests which are prioritised over what may be the national interests," Olmert charged. Analysts say Netanyahu fears that if he halts the war, hardline members of his coalition will walk out, collapsing the government and forcing elections he could lose. "If there is a war which is not going to save hostages, which cannot really eradicate more of what they did already against Hamas and if, as a result of this, soldiers are getting killed, hostages maybe get killed and innocent Palestinians are killed, then to my mind this is a crime," said Olmert. "And this is something that should be condemned and not accepted," he said. Trump should summon Netanyahu to the White House Oval Office and facing cameras, tell the Israeli leader: "'Bibi: enough is enough'", Olmert said, using the premier's nickname. "This is it. I hope he (Trump) will do it. There is nothing that cannot happen with Trump. I don't know if this will happen. We have to hope and we have to encourage him," said Olmert. Despite occasional expressions of concern about the situation in Gaza, the US remains Israel's key ally, using its veto at the UN Security Council and approving billions of dollars in arms sales. - 'Doable and valid' - Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Militants abducted 251 hostages, 54 of whom remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 54,880 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, figures the United Nations deems reliable. Along with former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser Al-Qidwa, Olmert is promoting a plan to end decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to create a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. Both sides would swap 4.4 percent of each other's land to the other, according to the plan, with Israel receiving some West Bank territory occupied by Israeli settlers and a future Palestinian state territory that is currently part of Israel. Ahead of a meeting this month in New York co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia on steps towards recognising a Palestinian state, Olmert said that such a plan is "practical, is doable, is relevant, is valid and is real." Olmert spent over a year in prison from 2016-2017 after being convicted in corruption scandals that ended his political career and efforts to forge peace. A longtime political rival of Netanyahu even though they both emerged from the same Likud right-wing party, he also faces an uphill struggle to convince Israeli society where support for a Palestinian state, let alone land swaps, is at a low ebb after October 7. "It requires a leadership on both sides," said Olmert. "We are trying to raise international awareness and the awareness of our own societies that this is not something lost but offers a future of hope." - 'Get rid of both' - Al-Qidwa, who is due to promote the plan alongside Olmert at a conference organised by the Jean-Jaures Foundation think tank in Paris on Tuesday, told AFP the blueprint was the "only game in town and the only doable solution". But he said societies in Israel and the Palestinian territories still had to be convinced, partly due to the continuation of the war. "The moment the war comes to an end we will see a different kind of thinking. We have to go forward with acceptance of the co-existence of the two sides." But he added there could be no hope of "serious progress with the current Israeli government and current Palestinian leadership" under the ageing president Mahmud Abbas, in office now for two decades. "You have to get rid of both. And that is going to happen," he said, labelling the Palestinian leadership as "corrupt and inept".
