Gaza: six killed in Israeli strike on the surgical building of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis – the IDF says it targeted a senior Hamas figure

Six people were killed on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, November 12, when an Israeli air strike hit the surgical building of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, the largest hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israeli army and the Shin Bet internal security service say they targeted a senior Hamas figure and other members of its military wing who were operating from inside the hospital.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health, which is run by the Hamas administration, condemned the strike on the surgical building “in the hours after midnight”. According to the ministry, the six dead include medical staff, patients and their companions, among them Dr Rizq Abu Saira, and many were injured. Gaza’s Civil Defence spoke of 20 injured. The ministry asked the UN and international organisations to intervene urgently to protect hospitals.

The director of the complex said the building was hit vertically from above and that the intensive care units and the men’s and women’s surgical wards suffered major damage. Videos in circulation showed thick smoke inside the building and heavy destruction on the second floor, with medical equipment and beds scattered by the blast. Hamas called the strike a “war crime”.

What the Israeli army says

In a joint statement with the Shin Bet on Thursday morning, the Israeli army said Hamas had installed itself in the hospital and was using it as a command centre for attacks on its troops and on Israel. As examples it listed weapons storage in the complex, interrogations and torture by Hamas security and intelligence services on its premises, command and control rooms, and the use of facilities as observation posts and hideouts.

According to the statement, precision munitions and aerial surveillance were used before and during the strike to limit civilian casualties. The army, which published an aerial image and a three-dimensional depiction of the building, said it would report on the results later. Hamas denies using hospitals for military purposes. These are the parties’ own claims, which we have not verified independently.

Nasser has been in the spotlight before: in August 2025 a double Israeli strike there killed at least 20 people, among them journalists and health workers. Khan Younis was also at the centre in early November, when the Israeli army announced it had killed a Hamas figure holding hostage Omer Shem Tov.

Despite the October 2025 ceasefire, strikes in Gaza have not stopped. The Health Ministry counts more than 1,600 dead since then and more than 74,600 in total since the war began in October 2023. Israel and Hamas accuse each other of ceasefire violations, while heavy rain in recent days flooded tens of thousands of tents of displaced people. Consultations on the multinational force for Gaza continue meanwhile.