Targeting medicine warehouse at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital aggravates Gaza’s healthcare destruction
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights writes on 2 August 2026:
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) targeting of a warehouse full of medicines and medical supplies at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. This latest crime further demonstrates Israel’s intent to destroy what remains of the healthcare system and deprive civilians of life-saving medical services as part of the ongoing crime of genocide against the population of the Gaza Strip, which has continued for 34 months.
The IOF’s targeting of warehouses containing medicines and medical supplies constitutes an attack on a protected civilian object and a direct assault on the rights to life and health. It is intended to undermine the hospital’s capacity to continue providing medical care to thousands of patients and injured people at a time when hospitals across the Gaza Strip are experiencing an unprecedented collapse due to recurrent attacks, the ongoing siege, repeated closure, and the obstruction of the entry of medicines, medical supplies, and fuel.
This attack is an extension of the systematic policy pursued by the IOF to force hospitals out of service and destroy the healthcare infrastructure considering it essential to the survival of the civilian population.
According to information obtained by PCHR’s field researchers, at approximately 01:30 on Saturday, 01 August 2026, the IOF issued evacuation orders for an entire residential block on Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital Street in Deir al-Balah. The evacuation orders also covered displacement shelters established within the hospital’s courtyard and its surrounding area, in preparation for an attack on an unspecified location. As a result, people fled the area and many of them sought shelter inside the hospital’s departments, believing they would be safer there.
At approximately 02:20 on the same day, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a small barrack located northwest of the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The barrack was used to store medicines, IV fluids, and other medical supplies for the hospital. It is located adjacent to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Displacement Camp, which comprises 340 tents sheltering approximately 1,940 displaced people, most of them women and children, who had sought refuge in the vicinity of the hospital after being forcibly displaced from various areas across the Gaza Strip.
The strike completely destroyed the medicine warehouse and created a crater tens of meters deep, while also destroying 40 tents inside the displacement camp. Dozens of other tents were damaged, forcibly displacing dozens of families once again. The attack came amid a severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies across hospitals in the Gaza Strip due to the tightened siege and the obstruction of the entry of essential medical supplies.