An Israeli strike targeting Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital in central Gaza has left an unknown number of Palestinians, many of them wounded patients, burned alive, shocking the videos of the incident have shown.
The courtyard of the hospital in Deir Al-Balah was filled with makeshift tents housing displaced Palestinians who had nowhere else to go, following repeated forced evacuation orders from the Israeli army in northern Gaza.
Horrifying videos showed flames engulfing the hospital and surrounding tents. Screams and wails could be heard in the footage.
One Palestinian man, who appeared to be connected to an IV drip, was seen burning alive, while a woman and a young girl were also seen in the same huge blaze.
"I swear to God we can’t do anything. We can’t even put out the flame, no water, no civil defence, I swear we can’t do anything, and people are burning in front of us," Gaza journalist Saleh Al-Jafarawi said, standing before the site.
The strike targeted the hospital and the surrounding courtyards at around 2am local time, while most patients and residents of the makeshift tent camp were still deep asleep.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital said that at least four people were killed and 40 others wounded, some of them seriously.
It was already struggling to treat victims of an earlier Israeli strike on a nearby school where people were sheltering nearby, in which at least 20 people were killed.
According to the Gaza-based government media office, this was the seventh Israeli attack on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital.
Online, activists and journalists expressed their outrage and horror over the attack, calling for accountability.
"A year ago, Israel bombed a hospital, there was an international outcry so a bunch of media and political figures ran cover for them. now they're just burning people alive in hospitals with zero pretext or effort to cover it up at all," one person wrote on X.
"The occupation army burned human beings alive in their tents. These were patients, with IVs still in their arms, trapped and helpless in tents in front of the hospital. This is a holocaust," Hossam Shabat, a Gaza journalist who has been covering Israeli assaults for over a year wrote.
"Imagine the media coverage if another country burned people alive like this, History will show that western news organisations utterly failed Palestinians," journalist Laila Al-Arian commented online.
'Double standards' in the media
The attacks on the hospital triggered accusations of Western media "double standards", following the sympathetic coverage of Israeli troops killed in a rocket strike on Sunday night but an absence of focus on the civilian victims of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital massacre.
Sky News in particular garnered widespread criticism after an unprecedented TV report where they named four Israeli soldiers killed in a Hezbollah strike on a military base near Haifa.
The report came just hours after the strike on the hospital and as harrowing videos were shared on social media showing the carnage.
"The double standard is sickening. How dare Media constantly humanise murderous genocidal IDF soldiers with names/age but deny Palestinians & Lebanese they murder same humanity? Where's daily roll call of names of thousands of Palestinian children, women, men IDF bastards kill?" one person wrote on X.
Palestinians and pro-Gaza commentators demanded Western media name the victims of Israeli attacks in Gaza, particularly those who were killed in the hospital fire.
"Why are the names of four Israeli soldiers killed while engaged in armed warfare shared on national British television, but not Palestinian civilians? What possible answer is there, other than that Palestinian life is judged to have very little worth?" UK based journalist and activist Owen Jones commented.
"Why do I have to know the name of 4 Israeli soldiers killed in a military operation? Why does Sky not read out the name of the Palestinian person displaced multiple times into a tent and burned alive last night in Israeli bombings?" one person responded, with dozens of others sharing the same sentiment in response to the coverage.
Attacks on north Gaza
The strike comes as Israel continues its ground and aerial offensive on northern and central Gaza with civilians effectively barred from exiting and entering the besieged territory as indiscriminate attacks on the area continue.
No hospitals or ambulances are working in the north, leaving the injured and sick without any assistance from emergency services or doctors.
In recent days, Palestinians in the north, particularly in Jabalia, have been taking to social media to call for help and awareness of the massacres taking place, saying civilians are being "annihilated" and "exterminated".
A spokesperson for Gaza’s government media office, Ismail Al-Thawbata, said on Sunday: "Israeli occupation is committing massacres in the northern governorates, where more than 300 people have been martyred in nine days during a ground attack and the ongoing genocide."
He also noted that Israel is trying to continue forcibly displacing Palestinians in northern Gaza, describing it as the "largest and most dangerous American-Israeli plan in the 21st century".
Many civilians are trapped under the rubble as Israel continues its bombardment and ground offensive on northern Gaza.
The UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese denounced the attacks on the north as "another massacre".
She said Palestinians in Jabalia "are killed – both in groups and one by one – amid unspeakable cruelty and sadism" by Israeli troops "who have accepted to be ‘willing executioners’ of a genocidal plan".
Seven World Health Organisation (WHO) missions have also been blocked by Israel from reaching the north in recent days, the UN said.
The World Food Programme, the UN food agency, reported that no food aid has reached northern Gaza since 1 October with fears the civilian population there is being starved to death.
While the main assault is on the north, Israel is also striking other areas across the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 42,289 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded over 98,600 others. The war has utterly devastated the Gaza Strip, plunging it into a deep humanitarian crisis.