An Israeli strike on the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza shortly after midnight on Thursday killed at least six people, including a surgeon who was on duty and a 13-year-old boy who had been due to have an operation, Palestinian officials say. Forty people were injured.

The strike hit the hospital’s surgery unit, Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Ezz Eddine Abu Sabha told CNN, tearing through part of the complex and leaving charred debris across the destroyed unit.

Among the dead was Dr Rizk Abu Shaira, 52, who was working in the surgery department at the time. Two of the injured are doctors in critical condition.

What the hospital lost

Zaher al-Waheidi, spokesperson for Gaza’s Ministry of Health, called the attack “a horrific crime” and said Abu Shaira was “martyred while on duty providing services to patients,” Al Jazeera reported.

“He did not deserve to meet his demise while among the patients in the hospital corridors,” he said.

The damage ran well beyond the operating theatres. Al-Waheidi said the strike caused widespread destruction inside the surgery departments and operating rooms, and major damage to the outpatient clinics, the radiology department and the laboratory.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Gaza said it was the seventh attack on the hospital, which serves at least 500,000 people in southern Gaza.

“I was asleep when suddenly I was covered with dust and glass,” said Atiya Abu Basir, an elderly patient. “I couldn’t walk because I just had surgery.”

The Israeli account

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said they had targeted the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, Muhammad Abu Ismail, along with “additional terrorists who were hiding inside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis,” saying he had planned and advanced attacks on Israeli forces and civilians.

CNN reports that it asked the IDF whether Abu Ismail was killed in the strike and what measures were taken to reduce the risk to civilians. No answer is recorded in the filing. Neither outlet reached for this report establishes whether the named commander was present or killed, and no independent verification of the Israeli account is available.

The ordnance

Footage from inside the hospital showed two bombs, one of which failed to explode, CNN reports. A label on it identified the weapon as a US-manufactured GBU-39/B, a 250-pound bomb that has been supplied to Israel.

The Gaza Government Media Office said it holds Israel and the United States directly responsible for the strike.

This happened during a ceasefire

The strike falls inside a nominal US-brokered ceasefire agreed more than a year ago, under which Israel has carried out near-daily strikes in Gaza, CNN reports. According to the United Nations, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,400 people in Gaza since the ceasefire began, and there is no fully functioning hospital left in the enclave.

“They say there is a ceasefire. Where is there a ceasefire? Since the ceasefire, there are more massacres,” said Maryam Abu Hatab, whose brother was killed in the strike.

The US-led Board of Peace, which oversees the ceasefire, called on Israel and Hamas on Thursday to uphold their commitments under the Comprehensive Peace Plan and to protect civilians.

The wider picture for Gaza’s hospitals

Al Jazeera sets out the cumulative toll on medical services. At least 1,725 medical workers have been killed in three years. Of the enclave’s 37 hospitals, 20 are partially functioning and 17 are non-operational, and health authorities say 44 per cent of essential medicines are out of stock for a population of 2.3 million.

The Gaza Government Media Office has documented 793 Israeli attacks on healthcare services. A report published last month by Insecurity Insight recorded at least 3,508 attacks on healthcare across the occupied Palestinian territory between October 2023 and September 2026, with 95 per cent attributed to Israeli forces.

A note on names and sourcing

The three filings transliterate the dead surgeon’s name differently — Rizk Abu Shaira (CNN), Rizq Abu Shuaira (Al Jazeera) and a Sinhala rendering close to Risk Abu Shayra (Hiru). They are the same person. This report uses CNN’s spelling.

Three verified newsrooms carry this story, but they are not three independent accounts. Hiru News cites CNN as its own source and its Sinhala filing is a translation of that report, so the independent reporting here is CNN’s and Al Jazeera’s. Hiru is cited because it is how this event reached Sri Lankan readers, and its figures match CNN’s exactly.

The death toll, the injury figure and the identification of the dead are attributed by all three outlets to Palestinian officials and Gaza’s Civil Defence and Health Ministry. The totals in the section above come from Gaza’s health authorities and the Gaza Government Media Office, except the 3,508 figure, which is from Insecurity Insight, and the 1,400 figure, which is the UN’s.

Not reported

No filing says whether the named Hamas commander was in the hospital or was killed, what warning if any was given, or how many patients were in the surgery unit at the time. None reports an Israeli response to the Board of Peace statement, and none says whether the unexploded bomb has been made safe or whether the surgery unit can be returned to use.