An Israeli air strike early Sunday heavily damaged one of the few functioning hospitals in Gaza, as the Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas ‘command and control centre’ operating from within the facility.

Since the outbreak of war, tens of thousands of Gazans have sought refuge in hospitals across the territory, many of which have suffered severe damage in ongoing hostilities.

The strike on Al-Ahli Hospital in northern Gaza – also known as the Baptist or Ahli Arab Hospital – caused no casualties, but came a day after Israeli forces seized a key corridor in the territory and signalled plans to expand their campaign.

It also comes after the United Nations warned that medicines and related supplies are rapidly running out in Gaza as casualties surge.

‘The bombing led to the destruction of the surgery building and the oxygen generation station for the intensive care units,’ Gaza’s civil defence rescue agency said.

The strike came ‘minutes after the (Israeli) army’s warning to evacuate this building of patients, the injured and their companions’, the agency said.

AFP photographs showed massive slabs of concrete and twisted metal scattered across the site after the strike.

The blast left a gaping hole in one of the hospital’s buildings, with iron doors torn from their hinges.

Onlookers sifted through the rubble, while some retrieved equipment from a media van also damaged in the strike.

Iraq’s pro-Iran Aletejah TV said one of its live broadcast vehicles was hit by the strike. 

The strike on the hospital came as Israel expanded and intensified its offensive across much of Gaza.

An air strike on Sunday targeting a vehicle in the central city of Deir el-Balah killed seven people including six brothers,civil defence said.

On Saturday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that the military planned to expand its offensive as it completed the takeover of ‘Morag axis’ between the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis. The corridor is part of what he calls ‘the Israeli security zone.’

Patients, relatives, and medical personnel evacuated the Al-Ahli hospital in haste following the military’s warning to evacuate.

Many now remain stranded in the surrounding streets.

Naela Imad, 42, had been sheltering at the hospital for several days but had to rush out of the complex.

‘Just as we reached the hospital gate, they bombed it. It was a massive explosion,’ she told AFP.

‘Now, me and my children are out on the street. We’ve been displaced more than 20 times. The hospital was our last refuge.’

Mohammed Kashko, 66, who lives near Al-Ahli, described a scene of chaos.

‘I heard children and displaced people screaming and crying in the streets,’ he said.

‘There was fire and destruction,’ he added. ‘The situation is terrifying. We just have to pray to God now.’

The Israeli military asserted that Hamas militants were operating from within the hospital compound.

Security forces ‘struck a command and control centre used by Hamas in the Al-Ahli Hospital,’ the military said.

‘The compound was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.’

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza condemned the strike, saying it led to the ‘forced evacuation of patients and medical staff.’

Hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023. 

Al-Ahli hospital was heavily damaged by an explosion in its car park on October 17, 2023, leaving multiple fatalities.

Militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad accused Israel, which denied responsibility and blamed a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad for that blast – an assertion backed by the United States.

Aid agencies and the UN say that only few of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional.

‘The health system in Gaza is overwhelmed by the influx of casualties and rapidly depleting essential medicines and supplies due to the blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid supplies into Gaza for over a month,’ the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs said in a Tuesday report.

The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday at least 1,574 Palestinians had been killed since March 18 when a ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,944.