Palestinian child killed in targeted Israeli attack of Khan Yunis hospital

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Israeli forces killed a 12-year-old Palestinian girl in an attack targeting a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip last night.

Dunia Abu Mohsen was recovering from losing her leg in an Israeli air strike that killed her parents and siblings in Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, when an Israeli tank-fired shell hit the hospital and struck her in the head. The tank shell, which did not explode, injured several other Palestinians.

Dunia lost her leg in an Israeli air strike on 27 October that struck her relatives’ home in Al-Amal neighbourhood of Khan Yunis, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Six of her family members were killed in the air strike, including her parents and two of her siblings.

“I want someone to take me abroad, to any country, to install a prosthetic leg, to be able to walk like other people,” Dunia told Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) in a video that was filmed on 25 November during the seven-day truce.

“I want to become a doctor, like those who treat us, so that I can treat other children,” Dunia said. “I only want one thing: For the war to end.”

More than 7,870 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, according to the Governmental Media Office. Thousands more are missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings, most of whom are presumed dead. The death toll is rising rapidly as Israeli authorities cut Palestinians in Gaza off from food, clean water, fuel, electricity and vital medicines.

Israeli forces have systematically targeted Gaza’s health system since launching the massive military offensive, depriving hospitals of fuel, electricity and medicines and targeting many hospitals with air strikes, shelling, live ammunition and other attacks on patients and health care workers. Only eight of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are currently functional and services are extremely limited, according to UN OCHA.

READ: Palestine journalist killed in an Israel bombing in central Gaza