ISRAELI forces killed at least four people today when they targeted a hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip.

The attack set off a firestorm that swept through a tent camp for people displaced by the war, leaving dozens with severe burns, according to Palestinian medics.

The Israeli military once again claimed it was targeting Palestinian fighters, without providing evidence. In recent months Israeli forces have repeatedly struck crowded shelters in schools and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter that killed at least 20 people when the early morning air strike hit and fire engulfed many of the tents.

Several secondary explosions could be heard after the initial strike, but it was not immediately clear if they were caused by weapons or fuel tanks.

A man sobbed as he carried a toddler with a bandaged head in his arms. Another small child with a bandaged leg was given a blood transfusion on the floor of the packed hospital.

Twenty-five people were transferred to the Nasser hospital in southern Gaza after suffering severe burns, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.

Israelis have now killed well over 42,000 Palestinians since October 7 2023, following Hamas’s attack, during which 1,139 people were killed and around 250 were taken hostage.

Around 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced by the war, often multiple times, and large areas of the coastal territory have been completely destroyed.

Israel has ordered the entire remaining population of the northern third of Gaza, estimated at around 400,000 people, to evacuate to the south and has not allowed any food to enter the north since the start of the month. 

That has raised fears amongst Palestinians that Israel intends to order all civilians out of northern Gaza and label anyone remaining there a combatant — a surrender-or-starve strategy that rights groups say would violate international law.

Israeli rights groups called on the international community today to prevent Israel from carrying out the plan, saying there are “alarming signs” that Israel is beginning to implement it.

The statement, signed by B’Tselem, Gisha, Yesh Din and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, warned that states “have an obligation to prevent the crimes of starvation and forcible transfer.”