UPDATE — November 13, 14:29 Bogotá (19:29 UTC): The death toll from Thursday’s strike on Nasser Hospital rose to seven on Friday, after 20-year-old Mohammed Iyad Al-Jazzar died of wounds sustained in the attack, Quds News Network reported; Europa Press also reported that the toll had climbed to seven.
UPDATE — November 13, 06:33 Bogotá (11:33 UTC): Türkiye on Friday condemned the strike on Nasser Hospital, calling it a grave violation of international law. The strike hit the second floor of the hospital's Al-Yasin building, where the intensive care and surgery wards are located, Türkiye Today reported. The death of Muhammad Abu Ismail, the Hamas commander Israel said it targeted, remained unconfirmed on Friday morning: his name did not appear in the list of victims provided by Gaza's civil defence rescue service, and the Israeli military did not confirm whether he had died in the strike, AFP reported.
An Israeli airstrike hit the surgery wing of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis shortly after midnight on Thursday, November 12, 2026, killing at least six people — including a surgeon and a 13-year-old boy — and knocking out the surgery department that serves half of Gaza's 2 million people, in the deadliest single strike since Israel's elections last month and the latest attack on a hospital during a ceasefire that has failed to stop the killing, according to Reuters.
Two missiles crashed through the roof of the five-storey Al-Yasin building, which houses the surgery wards, causing extensive damage. The strike came at around 00:39 local time, according to Medical Aid for Palestinians. One of the missiles failed to explode and remained inside the building, the charity said. Gaza's Civil Defense said the missiles hit the second floor and put the wounded at 30; the World Health Organization confirmed 27 injured, according to Firstpost.
"All of a sudden the world turned upside down"
Ayman Abu Obeid, a doctor who was injured in the attack, was on an overnight shift when an explosion ripped through the room where he and others were sleeping. "All of a sudden the world turned upside down. It went dark all at once," he said from a hospital bed, with piles of mangled furniture and medical equipment covered in dust from blown-out concrete around him, according to Reuters.
Goher Rahbour, a British surgeon volunteering at the hospital, said the strike came just after midnight. "It was very loud, very quick. The building shook, there was a lot of smoke that came up," he said, according to Dawn.
Among the dead was Rezik Abushira, a surgeon who was featured in a 2026 documentary, "American Doctor," working alongside three visiting US doctors who help provide medical care for Palestinians in Gaza. The dead also included a 13-year-old boy, according to Gaza's education ministry. The boy had been due to undergo surgery, according to CNN.
Israel says it targeted a Hamas commander; Hamas denies the hospital was a base
In a statement, Israel's military said it targeted a man named Muhammad Abu Ismail, describing him as "the commander of Hamas' Khan Yunis Brigade," and said he and other militants "were hiding inside the Nasser Hospital." The military accused the militants of "turning the Nasser Hospital compound into a headquarters and operating from there," and said Abu Ismail directed attacks and that Hamas used the hospital to store weapons and conduct interrogations, according to Reuters and Dawn.
Hamas rejected the claim that it had used the hospital as a base for operations, saying Israel put forward a false narrative to justify the airstrikes. It did not immediately say whether Abu Ismail had been targeted, injured or killed. The Israeli military offered no evidence for the claim that the hospital was being used as a Hamas headquarters, according to the Associated Press. Whether Abu Ismail was killed in the strike has not been confirmed.
Hospitals are protected sites under international law. Both attacking hospitals and their use for military purposes are typically considered breaches of the law, although medical facilities can lose their protected status under certain conditions. Rights groups say Israel has not shown sufficient evidence in many cases to justify its attacks on hospitals during the war, according to Reuters.
The seventh strike on Nasser since October 2023
It was at least the seventh time Israel's military has struck the Nasser Hospital complex since the start of the Gaza war, hospital officials say. In August 2025, the hospital was hit by a double-tap attack that killed at least 20 people, including journalists and health workers, according to Reuters.
Nasser is the largest hospital in southern Gaza and one of the few major medical facilities still functioning in the territory. Its surgery department serves half of Gaza's 2 million people and was knocked out of service by the strike. The World Health Organization says it has documented more than 1,050 attacks on health facilities in Gaza, causing more than 1,000 deaths, according to the Associated Press.
"Gaza's health facilities are lifelines for its people. They must be protected. They must never be militarized or attacked," said World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement, according to Reuters. The United Nations said it was deeply alarmed by the strike, which killed six people, injured 27 and caused extensive damage to the facility.
A ceasefire that has not stopped the killing
The strike took place despite a ceasefire that came into effect in October 2025. The ceasefire halted major fighting but has failed to halt Israeli attacks or secure Hamas' disarmament. At least 1,600 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire went into effect, and five Israeli soldiers have been killed during the same period, according to Reuters.
Medics reported at least five more deaths in separate incidents elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday — one person killed by Israeli gunfire near the al-Bureij camp, one in a drone strike on a vehicle near Deir al-Balah, two in a strike on a vehicle near Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital and one in a drone strike in Jabalia — taking Thursday's death toll across Gaza to at least 11, according to Dawn.
The US-led Board of Peace, which oversees the Gaza ceasefire, urged Israel and Hamas to honour their commitments under the Comprehensive Peace Plan and protect civilians. In rare criticism, the Board said this week that Israel — which tightly controls entry into Gaza — had not done enough in anticipation of the cold weather and needed urgently to let in more supplies, according to CNN and Dawn.
A baby freezes to death in a tent as winter approaches
Separately, a 9-month-old baby died of hypothermia in a displacement tent in Khan Yunis after days of harsh weather and flooding that displaced thousands of Palestinians living in tents. Kinan Ahmed Raqiq "died from hypothermia inside his family's displacement tent," a doctor who saw the child said. "I woke up only to see his skin had turned blue so I rushed him to Nasser hospital, but he had already died from hypothermia and frozen to death," his father, Ahmed Raqiq, said outside the hospital, according to Dawn.
Heavy rain last week flooded tens of thousands of tents across Gaza, where about 65 percent of the population remains displaced. Five people, including three children, died the day after the flooding when a sandy embankment collapsed onto their tents. James Elder, spokesman on Gaza for the UN children's agency, Unicef, warned that the flooding was just the beginning of the cold season. "We're weeks away from winter, so we are getting unprecedented rain and cold," he said, according to Dawn.
What remains to be confirmed
It is not confirmed whether Muhammad Abu Ismail, the Hamas commander Israel said it targeted, was killed or even inside the hospital when the missiles hit. Israel has not published evidence for its claim that the hospital was being used as a military headquarters. The full extent of the damage to the surgery and intensive care wards is still being assessed, and it is not clear when the surgery department — which serves about a million people — will be able to reopen, or what happened to the missile that failed to explode inside the building. The World Health Organization and the United Nations have called for the hospital to be protected; whether the strike draws any formal response from the Board of Peace beyond its statement remains to be seen.
Lea también: Israeli Strikes Killed at Least Four Palestinians in Gaza on Monday as the Ceasefire Death Toll Climbed Past 1,600, Israel's President Tasks Gadi Eisenkot With Forming Government in Major Setback for Netanyahu y Ahmad Tibi Offers the Joint List's Support From Outside to Gadi Eisenkot: "I Don't Want a Ministry, We Want Change".
Fuentes: Palestine Chronicle (Quds News Network) and Europa Press, November 13, 2026; Türkiye Today and AFP, November 13, 2026; Reuters, vía GMA News Online, 13 de noviembre de 2026; Dawn, 13 de noviembre de 2026; Firstpost, 13 de noviembre de 2026; The Associated Press, vía Arab News, 13 de noviembre de 2026; CNN, vía Greater Kashmir, 13 de noviembre de 2026. Foto de portada: ambulancia dañada frente al Hospital Nasser en Jan Yunis tras un ataque aéreo. Tasnim News Agency, vía Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). Foto de archivo.