GAZA CITY, Palestine

Three Palestinians were killed and several others injured on Friday in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a tent sheltering displaced people at a hospital in the central Gaza Strip and a home in Gaza City.

The Civil Defense Agency in Gaza said that “a Palestinian was martyred and others were injured in an Israeli airstrike on a tent sheltering displaced persons at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza."

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that the attack caused panic and fear among patients, medical staff, and displaced families, including children, both inside and outside the hospital.

Hospitals, schools, and mosques and churches have all been targeted by Israel during its nearly year-long offensive, though under the rules of war they should be off-limits.

In a separate airstrike, two more Palestinians were killed and others were critically wounded, including women and children, when a house in the Al-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City was bombed, according to medical sources at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, Israel has continued a brutal offensive on Gaza following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas last October.

More than 41,500 people, most of them women and children, have since been killed and more than 96,000 injured, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli onslaught has displaced almost the entire population of the territory amid an ongoing blockade that has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel also faces accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi