An Israeli strike killed six people and wounded around 20 at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, a civil defence official told AFP on Thursday.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike. Gaza’s civil defence agency said the bodies of those killed and more than 20 people wounded in the strike had been recovered from a building at the medical complex.

“The death toll from the Israeli strike inside Nasser Medical Complex, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, has risen to six,” civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

Nasser Hospital confirmed the six deaths in a statement.

The Israeli military claimed it carried out an “aerial strike to eliminate the threat they posed, after the Hamas had established a presence within the hospital complex and used it as a command centre”.

Hazem Qassem, spokesman for Hamas, called the strike on Nasser a war crime, adding that he held the US-backed Board of Peace in charge of overseeing Gaza’s ceasefire plan responsible for failing to prevent the strike.

A seventh person was killed by Israeli fire in central Gaza’s Al-Bureij camp Thursday, Bassal said.

Nearby Al-Aqsa hospital confirmed receiving the body and said the man was shot dead by Israeli forces. Israel’s military said it was looking into the death.

Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the ceasefire that came into effect in October 2025, after two years of an Israeli offensive in Gaza triggered by an attack of unprecedented scale carried out by the Palestinian group against Israel on October 7, 2023.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces killed seven people, including a 13-year-old boy, in the Gaza Strip, according to local emergency services, while the Israeli military claimed it had targeted “military operatives”.

More than 1,590 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the ceasefire, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. During the same period, the Israeli military has reported the loss of seven soldiers, as well as one civilian contractor.