By Mahmoud Issa and Alexander Cornwell
Deir al-Balah, GAZA/TEL AVIV, July 28 (Reuters) – Israel’s military on Saturday killed two Palestinians in Gaza and destroyed two warehouses near a hospital that stored medicine in separate strikes, amid uncertainty over whether Israel has accepted a deal reached with Hamas over the group’s disarmament.
Palestinian health officials said two Palestinians were killed in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City in central Gaza in an Israeli air strike. The military said those targeted were Hamas militants but declined to provide further details.
In an earlier incident, an Israeli air strike destroyed two warehouses that were used to store medicine by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in southern Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said in a statement.
The military had no immediate comment on the strike.
Two other warehouses storing medicine and the hospital’s outpatient clinic were damaged in the strike. There were no immediate reports of any injuries. The hospital said the warehouses had stored essential medical supplies used to treat kidney failure patients undergoing dialysis, along with other materials like gauze used in wound care and routine treatment.
“The Israeli occupation has committed a heinous crime,” Khalil al-Daqran, a doctor at the hospital, said of the strike.
“In the middle of the night, (the military) targeted a warehouse containing medical supplies for the hospital, and the occupation completely destroyed it,” he told Reuters.
Witnesses said the military had issued an evacuation warning for the area before carrying out the strike.
Hospitals and other civilian sites are protected under international humanitarian law, although that protection can be lost if they are used for military purposes. Israel’s military says Hamas and other armed groups operate from within civilian areas and facilities.
Fatima Sharab, a displaced Palestinian sheltering in a camp near the warehouses, said many people requiring medical care had been sheltering in the area to be close to the hospital.
“The strike hit, then we went back to the camp — there was no camp,” she said.
Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Gaza since agreeing last October to a U.S.-mediated ceasefire, killing 1,222 Palestinians in the past nine months. Palestinian health officials say most of those killed have been civilians, including women and children. Hamas rarely announces its casualties.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to announce a breakthrough in his plan to end the war, which both Israel and Hamas agreed to last year and which started with the ceasefire.
Trump said that Hamas, which ruled Gaza for nearly two decades before carrying out the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, had agreed to lay down its weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is yet to comment publicly, while his National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called the agreement unacceptable and said that Israel must continue to carry out its policy of assassinating Hamas leaders.
Trump’s Board of Peace, appointed to implement his plan for ending the Gaza war, released a roadmap on Thursday outlining the final steps for carrying out the initiative. The document states that Israel will cease military operations as part of its commitment to Trump’s 20-point plan, which it signed last year.
(Writing by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
