Israel bombs Nasser Hospital twice in Gaza, killing civilians and media workers amid deepening war.
On Monday, August 25, 2025, one of Gaza’s last standing lifelines, the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, was struck by Israel — not once, but twice. The first missile tore through the upper floors where doctors lived and operated, killing two. As rescue workers, journalists, and desperate colleagues ran toward the wounded, a second strike hit the stairwell, scattering bodies and silencing cries. In that moment, at least 20 souls were lost, 80 more wounded, and the smell of burning flesh and broken plaster clung to the air.
Among the dead was 33-year-old journalist Mariam Dagga, who had chronicled with quiet courage the starvation of Gaza’s children only days before. Alongside her fell four more journalists — voices of Al Jazeera, Reuters, and Middle East Eye — silenced in the very act of telling the world what was happening. Reuters’ live broadcast from the hospital simply cut off; the journalist behind the camera lay dead.
Israel called it a “tragic mishap.” Its officials spoke of investigations and Hamas surveillance cameras, but offered no proof, no solace to the families carrying bodies from the rubble. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office released words of “deep regret,” even as hospitals across Gaza continue to be struck, their wards already suffocating under famine, shortages, and patients bleeding in hallways without beds.
A British doctor who survived the bombing described only “chaos, disbelief and fear.” People stumbled into wards, leaving trails of blood behind them. Children on IV drips lay on the floor in the sweltering heat. “It leaves me in another state of shock that hospitals can be a target,” the doctor whispered, refusing to give a name out of fear.
But Gaza has seen this before. Nasser Hospital has been struck in June, in March, in raid after raid, each time shedding more of its strength, each time burying more of its staff and patients. Shifa Hospital, Al-Awda Hospital, everywhere the pattern repeats: the injured brought in, the injured killed inside. On the same day as the Nasser attack, Israeli gunfire killed six people who had only been trying to reach a food distribution point. Others, including children, were crushed in strikes in central Gaza.
The tally grows unbearable. Over 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in this war, half of them women and children, their names barely whispered before new names take their place. Nearly 190 journalists have died, 1,500 health workers too — those who ran toward the wounded instead of away, those who held cameras and stethoscopes as shields. The world condemns, but condemnation drifts like smoke, leaving the rubble behind untouched.
This war began with Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack — 1,200 Israelis murdered, 251 dragged into captivity. Most of the hostages are gone, released or dead. Some still remain, broken shadows in Gaza’s ruins. Yet Gaza itself has become a graveyard. Aid seekers are gunned down, children starve in the rubble, hospitals — those last sanctuaries — are reduced to targets.
And still, there exists no one to stop Israel. The world watches, speaks of tragedy, and turns away. Meanwhile, under the broken stairwells of Nasser Hospital, blood runs in silence, and a people are left helpless, wondering how much more must be lost before mercy can find them.
