The Hamas Health Ministry announced on Saturday that eleven people were killed when Israeli airstrikes hit displaced persons’ tents near a hospital in Rafah, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

For its part, the Israeli army said it carried out a “precision strike” against militants of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – an armed movement considered the second most powerful in the Gaza Strip -, assuring that there was “no damage to the hospital”.

“Eleven people were killed and around 50 others were injured, including children, by Israeli occupation forces who targeted displaced persons’ tents and a gathering of people near the gate of Al Emirati Maternity Hospital” in Rafah, Hamas Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf said. al-Kundra, stressing that the dead included an ambulance crew member.

Footage released on social networking sites, the authenticity of which was independently verified by AFP, shows bloodied wounded being given first aid.

An AFP journalist saw injured people being taken on stretchers to another hospital.

“Suddenly there was a big explosion. They (including the Israelis) bombed a location full of people (…) We have many dead,” said a resident.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described through X as “outrageous” that displaced people’s tents were bombed.

“Health personnel and civilians are not targets and must be protected at all times,” he added, calling for a “ceasefire” for Israel for the second time.

In Rafah, on the closed border of the small coastal enclave with Egypt, which has been constantly bombarded recently by the Israeli army, some 1.5 million Palestinians are trapped, many displaced, many more than once, because of the war.