In a Facebook post, Sakr identified himself by name and title and said he had appealed to the operatives to leave the hospital, explaining that his actions were aimed at protecting the facility from being shut down.
Following his plea, Sakr received a note at his office reading, “Dear one: You’ve crossed the line—be careful. This is your first warning.” In his post, he added, “They are threatening me brutally. I call on you in the name of God—not to forgive them.”
A Gaza-based source reported that last month, senior commanders from Hamas' al-Qassam Brigades and internal security forces barricaded themselves inside al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, even expelling new mothers from recovery rooms to take shelter there.
Hamas condemned the strike as “a vile and filthy crime,” accusing Israel of deliberately targeting 34 hospitals across Gaza in what it called a systematic campaign to destroy the enclave’s health infrastructure. The Gaza government’s media office dismissed Israel’s claim that terrorists operated from within the hospital as “absurd” and “a desperate attempt to justify its crimes against a protected civilian facility.”
In the wake of the attack, IDF Arabic spokesperson Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee issued an evacuation warning to residents of multiple neighborhoods in Khan Younis, including Kizan al-Najjar, Kizan Abu Rishwan, al-Salam, al-Manara, al-Qurain, Ma’an, Batn al-Samin, Jurat al-Lot, al-Fukhari and southern areas of Bani Suheila. “We will strike with maximum force any area from which rockets are launched,” Adraee wrote on social media.
In Rafah's Tel al-Sultan and Shaboura neighborhoods, Gaza Division forces destroyed weapons caches, tunnels and terror infrastructure, killing several terrorists. In northern Gaza, the 252nd Division also destroyed tunnels, military compounds and eliminated terrorists attempting to plant explosives.
