2025 Nasser Hospital Strikes

Nasser Hospital was the site of both medical treatment and journalists’ reporting positions during the events described in August 2025.[7][5] Hospital director Atef al-Hout said on August 25 that it was the only hospital operating in southern Gaza and held more than 1,000 patients despite an original capacity of 340 beds; he said some chronic patients were lying on the floor.[7] Journalists regularly used an exterior staircase as a reporting position.[5] Reuters contractor Hussam al-Masri operated a live video feed from the hospital.[2]

The Israeli military said its forces treated hospitals as sensitive sites requiring exceptional senior-level approval or prior measures before an attack.[6] In its account of the August operation, the military said Golani Brigade troops identified a camera they suspected was observing Israeli forces and helping direct attacks against them.[8] It said intelligence indicating Hamas activity at Nasser Hospital strengthened that suspicion and that the purpose of the operation was to destroy the camera and remove the perceived threat.[8]

On May 13, 2025, the Israel Defense Forces said it struck a command-and-control center at Nasser Hospital.[1] The military said Hassan Aslayih was killed, describing him as an alleged Hamas operative whom it said had participated in the October 7, 2023 attack.[1] The strike was also reported to have killed Ahmed al-Qudra, identified as head of Hamas’s anti-narcotics division and a member of its Police Command Council.[1]

On the morning of August 25, Israeli forces struck the hospital area again.[3] The targeted structure was identified as the al-Yassin building inside the hospital complex, and the attack was captured on a live broadcast.[9] Initial Israeli security accounts described the intended target as a person believed to have observed troops for several days using a camera and other surveillance equipment.[7] Officials were examining whether that person had operated under cover of Al Jazeera and whether the weapon selected was appropriate.[7]

Contemporaneous footage showed rescue workers arriving after an initial strike and another strike hitting while they were at the scene.[3] Medical workers could be seen attempting to extract people from rubble on a staircase.[3] Witnesses said journalists and others had also gone to the site to assist, while the Foreign Press Association said the strikes hit an exterior staircase where journalists regularly worked and that there had been no warning.[2]

The military’s initial inquiry subsequently described four tank shells fired at the target, despite an original approval for a more precise, limited means intended to reduce damage around the hospital.[6] An earlier attempt to destroy the camera with a drone had failed, after which the tank force used an existing approval without seeking renewed authorization.[6] A later account of footage described four shells fired in two barrages, approximately nine minutes apart, with two shells in one sequence striking the staircase seconds apart.[10] Medical personnel who had arrived after the initial attack were shown being hit by one of the shells.[10]

Early casualty accounts gave totals of 14 or 15 dead, followed by reports of 20 deaths from Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.[7][5] Al-Hout initially said 14 people had been killed and more than 50 injured, some seriously.[7] Later reporting put the death toll at 22, including five journalists.[5] A separate chronology recorded at least 18 deaths, including several journalists.[11]

The five journalists named in an August 25 casualty account were Mariam Abu Dagga, also rendered Miriam Abu Daqa; Hussam al-Masri; Mohammed Salama; Moaz Abu Taha; and Ahmad Abu Aziz.[7] Their reported work included assignments for the Associated Press, Reuters, Al Jazeera, NBC, local outlets and Tunisian radio.[7] Al-Masri’s live video feed stopped at the initial strike, and Reuters contractor Hatem Khaled was reported wounded.[2] Civil Defense worker Imad Abd al-Hakim al-Shaer was reported to have responded after the first strike and to have been killed in the second.[12]

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir ordered an immediate inquiry on August 25.[3] The military expressed regret for harm to uninvolved people and said it did not target journalists as such.[3] Military spokesperson Eddie Defrin said Israeli forces did not intentionally target civilians and alleged that Hamas used civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as shields and had operated from Nasser Hospital.[3]

Netanyahu said Israel “deeply regrets the tragic mishap that occurred today at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza” and that military authorities were conducting a thorough investigation.[3] He said Israel valued the work of journalists, medical staff and civilians, and identified defeating Hamas and bringing the hostages home as the war’s goals.[3]

Preliminary findings published on August 26 said Golani Brigade troops had identified a Hamas-installed surveillance camera used to track Israeli troop movements and help direct attacks.[3] The military said six people killed were terrorists, including one who had participated in the October 7 attack in southern Israel.[3] It named Jum’a Khaled Jum’a al-Najjar, Hisham Tayseer Ibrahim Quweder, Imad Abd al-Hakim Ali al-Shaer, Salah Yusuf Muhsin Barbakh, Muhammad Ahmad Salem Abu Hadaf and Omar Kamal Shahada Abu Teim.[12]

Zamir acknowledged shortcomings in the operation and ordered a fuller investigation.[13] The expanded examination covered authorization, the ammunition approved and used, the timing of authorization, and field decision-making.[6] An initial inquiry was reported to have found that troops acted without the required authorization and used shells rather than precision-guided munitions, contrary to restrictions governing attacks on sensitive hospital sites.[14]

The inquiry remained ongoing at the time of a September 6 report.[4] A later account said its findings were to be submitted to the Military Advocate General for a decision on possible criminal proceedings.[13]

The deaths prompted international condemnation: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the strike “completely unacceptable,” and UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan also called it “unacceptable.”[3] Hamas alleged that Israel had deliberately targeted media personnel to silence reporting and called the journalists’ deaths a “war crime.”[15]

Later investigative reporting challenged the military’s identification of the camera as a Hamas surveillance device, presenting evidence that it belonged to Reuters videographer Hussam al-Masri.[5] A photograph from mid-August showed him beside a camera covered with white cloth; journalists described such coverings as a common way to protect equipment from sun and dust.[5] An Israeli military official cited the covering as suspicious without detailing additional intelligence, while the military declined to comment on whether it had struck the wrong person and had not supplied supporting evidence in that report.[4]

A later review of footage and interviews with nearly 20 people reported four strikes without warning and found no evidence that anyone killed was armed.[4] It also identified discrepancies in the military’s list of six alleged Hamas operatives, including a name absent from the hospital casualty list; other reporting said Abu Teim had not been killed in the Nasser strike.[4][12] Hamas denied that any victims belonged to it.[4] These accounts did not reconcile the differing casualty totals or establish a final determination of the camera’s use and the status of every person killed.[4][5]

The sequence of strikes, particularly the attack after responders had gathered, prompted concerns from international-law experts about possible war crimes, but the cited reporting established no legal finding.[4] In a May 11, 2026 Senate speech, Senator Peter Welch described 22 deaths, including five journalists, and raised broader allegations about double-tap strikes against responders; his account dated the incident to August 28 and described three strikes, details not corroborated by the other material presented here.[16]