ISRAEL bombed the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City yesterday, the last major hospital providing critical healthcare in northern Gaza.

The bombing was part of a wave of air raids that killed at least 21 people. The hospital was hurriedly evacuated following a warning, with one girl dying because during the evacuation medics were unable to provide her with urgent care. Critically ill patients were wheeled out onto the street in their beds.

Al-Ahli is owned by the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, which condemned the decision to bomb a hospital, a war crime, on “Palm Sunday, the start of the most sacred week of the Christian year.” Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem.

Israel said, without providing evidence, that the hospital contained a Hamas command and control centre, its standard excuse. Its attacks on hospitals have become notorious since it invaded Gaza in October 2023, with mass graves uncovered after its occupation of the al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals.

Elsewhere in Gaza, seven people, six of them brothers, were killed in a strike on a car in Deir al-Balah. The youngest was 10 years old. 

The seven reportedly worked for a charity that distributes food. The boys’ father, Ibrahim Abu Mahadi, asked: “For what sin were they killed?”

Another Deir al-Balah strike killed three people, and three more were killed by Israeli bombs in Khan Younis.

Seven, including two women, were killed when bombs struck a house in Jabaliya. One pregnant woman was rescued alive from the rubble. 

Israel announced at the weekend it had completed a new “security corridor” cutting off Rafah from the rest of Gaza, and would “vigorously expand” its occupation of the territory. The corridor has been named Morag after a former Jewish settlement that existed between Rafah and Khan Younis.

“You will have to evacuate the fighting zones,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned Palestinians, without specifying where they could go. 

The security corridors and buffer zones established by Israeli soldiers now cover more than half of the besieged coastal territory.

Israel resumed its war on Gaza nearly a month ago, breaking a two-month truce.