What Happened at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital During the Gaza Ceasefire?

An Israeli strike hit part of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital compound in Deir al-Balah on August 29, 2026, during a ceasefire that began on October 10, 2025. The attack struck a tent used to store medical supplies and injured three people, according to the hospital’s director and Palestinian medical sources. 3

Israel said its military had targeted a Hamas military-wing commander who was allegedly hiding inside the hospital compound and planning attacks. However, the available reporting did not provide independent evidence substantiating that claim.

What was hit at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital?

Hospital director Khalil Daqran said an Israeli drone struck a tent being used as a medical-supply warehouse. Three people were wounded and treated at the hospital for minor injuries, according to medical reporting.

The strike was reported as occurring inside or adjacent to the hospital compound, behind the maternity department. That distinction matters: the immediate target described by Palestinian sources was a facility holding medical supplies, while Israel characterized its target as a Hamas commander.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is a major government hospital in Deir al-Balah and serves Gaza’s central governorate. 16 Damage to its storage capacity therefore affects more than the struck structure; it can also reduce the supplies available for treating patients and people wounded elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.

What did Israel say it was targeting?

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas commander inside the hospital compound. Its statement alleged that the commander was preparing attacks against Israeli troops and civilians and was helping rebuild Hamas’s military capabilities.

The available reports did not publish evidence independently confirming the identity of the alleged commander, the military activity attributed to him, or the claim that he was operating from the compound. That leaves the Israeli justification as an unverified military assertion rather than an independently established fact.

How does the strike fit the pattern around Al-Aqsa Hospital?

The August 29 strike followed an earlier attack on Al-Aqsa’s medical-storage facilities on August 1. Palestinian health officials said two of the hospital’s four medicine warehouses were destroyed and the other two were badly damaged. 13

The World Health Organization subsequently called for protection of Gaza’s health-care facilities, saying the earlier attack destroyed essential medical equipment and supplies, including items recently delivered by the WHO. 14

Taken together, the reports describe repeated damage to the hospital’s supply infrastructure during a period when Gaza’s health system remained under severe pressure. The available sources differ in how they describe the precise targets and casualties of individual attacks, but they consistently report damage to medical-storage facilities linked to Al-Aqsa Hospital. 1314

What else was reported in Gaza?

The August 29 incident occurred alongside reports of other Israeli strikes across Gaza. Palestinian medical and civil-defense sources reported deaths and injuries in separate attacks, including in Gaza City and central Gaza, while another report described an explosive device or strike near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

The casualty figures in these reports are attributed to Gaza health authorities and local medical sources. Because access to Gaza remains restricted and the sources describe separate incidents differently, individual totals should be treated as reported figures rather than independently audited counts.

What are officials saying about the ceasefire?

The strike came amid continuing disputes over compliance with the October 2025 ceasefire. Palestinian officials have reported more than 1,300 deaths and more than 4,300 injuries from Israeli attacks since the truce began, figures that cannot be independently verified in full under current access conditions. 1012

Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, warned that failures by both Israel and Hamas to follow the ceasefire roadmap threatened the agreement’s survival. He has described reconstruction, disarmament of Palestinian armed groups, and an Israeli withdrawal as central elements of the proposed next phase.

The dispute over the Al-Aqsa strike illustrates the broader problem: Israel presents attacks as operations against armed-group targets, while Palestinian officials and hospital sources describe damage to civilian and medical infrastructure. Without independently verifiable evidence about the alleged target, the public record does not resolve that dispute.

The wider reported toll

Gaza’s Health Ministry has reported that more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 174,000 injured since October 2023. Those figures are official Gaza health-authority totals, not an independently audited final count; reporting has also described people missing beneath rubble. 10

The Al-Aqsa strike is therefore significant not only because of the immediate injuries, but because it affected a hospital’s medical-supply capacity during a fragile ceasefire. The available evidence establishes the strike, the injuries, and the competing accounts of its intended target. It does not independently establish Israel’s claim that a Hamas commander was present or that the compound was being used for military activity.