At least 21 people, including five journalists as well as medics and rescue workers, were killed by Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in the south of the Gaza strip on Monday, reports Al Jazeera.
Israel's strikes were the latest in a series of attacks on civilians and medical facilities in the tormented Palestinian region.
The first strike of the "double-tap" attack, where one strike is followed by a second soon after, hit the top floor of a building at Nasser Hospital. Minutes later, as journalists and rescuers in orange vests rushed up an external staircase, a second projectile hit, said Dr Ahmed al-Farra, the head of the paediatrics department.
It killed journalists who worked for Al Jazeera, the Reuters and Associated Press (AP) news agencies, and others.
Among the journalists killed were Al Jazeera's Mohammad Salama, Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Daqqa, a freelance journalist working for AP at the time, as well as Ahmed Abu Aziz and Moaz Abu Taha.
The attack comes as Israel widens its offensive to heavily populated areas and urban centres, including Gaza City, increasing the already heightened peril for the population, the Al Jazeera report said.
Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said the attack has "sent the entire area into an absolute sense of chaos and panic".
"Not only for passers-by or people living in the vicinity of the hospital, but for the patients themselves, who are receiving treatment in one of the areas that must be protected under … international humanitarian law," Abu Azzoum said.
The attack was met with widespread global condemnation, including from press freedom groups and rights advocates, who expressed outrage over Israel's repeated targeted killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
The ongoing war in Gaza has been one of the deadliest for journalists, with around 200 media workers killed over the course of the nearly two-year Israeli assault, according to media watchdogs.
Israel's relentless attacks on Gaza started after Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 62,744 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.
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