In a dangerous development in the targeting of civilians in Gaza, Israeli fighters bombed ambulances in front of hospitals filled with wounded and displaced Gazans.

Local and international media said that at least 21 people were injured in Al-Quds Hospital as a result of Israeli air strikes near the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City.

According to a statement issued by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society on Friday, explaining that the injuries “occurred when the hospital’s internal glass shattered and part of the suspended ceiling fell, and that most of those affected were women and children, causing severe fear and panic among internally displaced civilians.”

Israeli fighters also launched attacks around the Indonesian hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, without reporting any casualties.

However, the greatest humanitarian catastrophe occurred in front of Al-Shifa Hospital, where dozens of people were killed and wounded as a result of the targeting of a convoy of ambulances that was preparing to evacuate the wounded to the Fah border crossing to cross into Egypt.

The hospital director said that coordination was made with the Red Cross before the wounded began to be transported in ambulances in order to transport them to the Rafah crossing, in light of the absence of any space in the hospital for a new wounded person.

The Israeli army said on Friday that it was verifying a report by the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip that stated that dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured in an Israeli strike on an ambulance convoy.

The Baptist Hospital was bombed on October 17, in a horrific incident for which Israel said it was not responsible, as a missile from Palestinian factions failed and caused the disaster. This was denied by the Palestinian factions, stressing that the hospital was bombed by an Israeli fighter.

Israel had warned hospitals in the Gaza Strip and asked them to evacuate immediately, a measure that medical teams rejected because of what they said was the impossibility of transferring the wounded from intensive care.

Hospitals in Gaza are under severe pressure with the siege of the Strip and the lack of medical personnel for the necessary materials and treatments to confront an unprecedented influx in the history of Gaza, which has long witnessed rounds of bloody conflict with Israel.

The escalation in the vicinity of hospitals comes hours after a new chapter of harsh daily life for the Palestinians of the besieged Strip, with the targeting of civilians in northern Gaza on Al-Rashid Street who were fleeing the fierce fighting in the city towards the south.

Video clips published by television channels and circulated by activists on social media sites showed a number of dead women and children scattered along with their body parts and belongings on the road.

It was not immediately clear whether the Israeli targeting resulted from airstrikes or gunfire by gunboats in the sea.

But local media reported that there were Israeli tanks near the coastal road, and that they targeted any passerby on that road.

Eyewitnesses said that the dead were civilians who were on their way from the northern Gaza Strip to the southern regions.

In the first casualty toll, the Hamas Ministry of Health announced that 14 people were killed in the same incident.

At the beginning of the war, the Israeli army had asked the residents of Gaza and its north to go to the south of the Strip, which it considered a “safe” place.

But since that time, the south has become subject to daily Israeli bombing, which targeted various areas in the Central Governorate, as well as the cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah.