Palestinian Civil Defense announces the killing of 28 people in strikes near a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip.

 The Palestinian Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced on Tuesday that at least 28 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes near the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told AFP, "So far, according to our crews present at the scene, they have recovered 28 martyrs from the area, specifically from the Afghani family's home." He explained that there are "more than 20 missing persons inside" the family's home, located near the hospital.

The Israeli army had previously announced that it had launched airstrikes targeting "Hamas terrorists who were sheltering inside a command and control complex built within an underground network beneath the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip."

He added, "The terrorist Hamas continues to use hospitals in the Gaza Strip for terrorist purposes, exploiting the civilian population inside and around the hospital in a ridiculous manner."

For his part, local photographer Amr Tabash told AFP that the scene was "absolutely catastrophic."

He added that the site was targeted "despite the presence of the World Health Organization on the scene preparing injured children to leave the Gaza Strip tomorrow."

He noted, "All the patients and wounded inside the hospital were running in fear, some on crutches, some screaming for their children, and others dragging them onto their beds."

The Israeli army announced earlier Tuesday that it had bombed a Hamas "command and control center" inside Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis. For its part, Hamas said in a statement that the "direct targeting" of the hospital led to the death of journalist Hassan Islayh, who died in a "new war crime."

The Hamas government media office said Islayh was receiving treatment "for a previous injury he sustained as a result of a direct targeting while performing his professional duties."

Last month, Islayh survived an Israeli airstrike that targeted a journalists' tent near Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, killing at least two journalists.

The Israeli army claimed at the time that Islayh "worked under the guise of a journalist and owned a media company," but that he was "a member of Hamas's Khan Yunis Brigade who infiltrated the country and participated in the bloody massacre committed by the organization on October 7."