War in Gaza: Witnesses recount deadly fire at Al-Aqsa hospital after Israeli strike

Witnesses said the strike happened around 1:15 a.m. local time on Monday (11:15 p.m. BST Sunday).

The attack hit an area between buildings filled with makeshift shelters, next to an outdoor waiting area for outpatients where there was no one at night, said Anna Halford, an emergency shelter coordinator. MSF emergency worker in Gaza who was not at the hospital during the strike, in a phone call from Deir al-Balah.

Hiba Radi, a mother who lived in a tent behind the hospital, told an independent BBC reporter in Gaza that she woke up to the sound of “explosions and fires breaking out around the tents.”

“There were explosions everywhere and we were shocked whether they were gas or weapons,” she said.

“This is one of the worst scenes we have ever witnessed and experienced,” she added. “We’ve never seen such destruction before. It’s hard, really hard.

Atia Darwish, a photographer who recorded some of the verified videos, told the BBC it was a “big shock” and that he was “unable to do anything” as he watched people burn.

“I was so broken,” he said.

Um Yaser Abdel Hamid Daher, who also lives at the hospital, told the BBC: “We saw so many people burning that we started to feel like we might burn like them.”

Among the injured were his son, his wife and his children. Her granddaughter Lina, 11, who had shrapnel in her hand and leg, said she heard people screaming.

“Our neighbor’s daughter was injured in the head and her father was killed. And our other neighbors were killed. The people next to us tore down the tent to get us out,” she said.

Her grandmother said the family “lost their tent and everything they had; They have nothing left.”

The Health Ministry reported Monday that more than 40 people were injured and four killed.

MSF reported a higher toll on Tuesday, saying five people were dead, their bodies burned by the time they were recovered, and 65 injured.

Forty of the injured – 22 men, eight women and 10 children – remained at al-Aqsa. The others were transferred to different hospitals, including eight to a specialized burn unit.

Ms Halford said her colleagues were treating burn victims “who almost certainly won’t survive”, saying “there’s very little you can do for burn victims of this severity”.

“You come home with this smell on your clothes. It’s a viscerally touching experience. It stays with you,” she said.

Monday’s strike was the seventh at the hospital site since March and the third in two weeks, Ms Halford said.

When she arrived at the hospital after the final blow, she said she found people rummaging through twisted metal and burned debris to retrieve their belongings.

Another mother the BBC spoke to whose children were burned had already evacuated from northern Gaza – and has nothing left.

The acting head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the strike took place in an area where residents of northern Gaza had been invited to resettle.

“There is really no safe place in Gaza for people to go,” the statement said.

Additional reporting by Haneen Abdeen