Tel AVIV, Israel (AP) – Nasser Hospital in Gaza became a death trap for rescuers, journalists and more last week. Israeli military targets With an attack that promoted global rage. Associated Press Reports raise serious questions On Israeli rationale for the attack and how it was implemented.
Israel has committed to investigating the “gap” in understanding the attack. Mariam Dagaworked for AP and other news organizations.
The AP’s analysis is based on information from current and former Israeli military officials, other officials and weapons analysts, and accounts from nearly 20 people who were in or near the hospital at the time of the strike.
Here are some takeaways:
The importance of towels
The military raided a hospital, well known as the point of a gathering of journalists. Military officials said the towels were covered with other unspecified intelligence, so they believed there was a video camera there in the position that Israeli forces were being used by Hamas nearby to observe Israeli forces.
The photo, taken on August 13, 2025, features Reuters videographer Hussam Al Masri in a white shirt and standing next to a towel-covered video camera on the stairs outside Nasser Hospital. (AP Photo/Mariam Daga)
The AP evidence shows that the camera in question actually belonged to a Reuters video journalist. Reuters video journalists routinely cover their equipment with white cloth to protect them from the burnt sun and dust. Journalist Husam al-Masri was killed on his first strike.
A photo taken by Dagga in mid-August shows a white cloth covered in the same stairwell where Al-Masri was struck, next to his camera. Five journalists told the Associated Press that he frequently used fabrics. A few weeks before the strike, Al Masri broadcasted almost daily from the stairwell, according to other journalists and hospital officials who worked there.
Witnesses said the drones frequently observed their location, including about 40 minutes before the attack.
The Israeli military declined to comment when asked if the wrong person had been attacked and offered no evidence of the allegations. Israel says none of the journalists killed are intended targets and are not linked to Hamas.
Double tap strike with at least 4 explosions
The military raided the same stairwell after medical workers, emergency workers and journalists gathered there to help victims from the first strike. It raised a “double tap” charges. This is a type of attack aimed at killing people who respond to the victim, and rights groups say it is a potential war crime.
Video analysis by the AP revealed that there were at least four explosions, two during the first strike and two without warning.
The Israeli military has not explained why they carried out the second round of strike.
The double tap strike, which struck a crowd moving into the area to save the victims from the first strike, is famously used by al-Qaeda and other extremist groups, as well as by Russian troops and troops loyal to former Syrian president Bashar Assad.
This frame grab from the video shows the second of two projectiles that Israeli forces quickly fired in succession in a stairwell outside Nasser Hospital on Monday, August 25, 2025, just minutes after Khan Younis’ first attack on Gaza Strip was attacked (UGC via AP)
Heavy weapons were used
The AP analyzed the video of the attack and discovered that Israel fired a highly explosive tank shell on a strike.
Israel ZIV, a retired general who once led the Israeli Army’s Office of Operations, said there are fewer and more accurate options available than tank fires.
Officials with knowledge of the attack said the tanks were not supposed to be in use and could not say what the original plan was. The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.
The same brigade that took on these strikes, the Golani Brigade, was involved in the March shooting of an ambulance convoy in southern Gaza that killed 15 Palestinian medical professionals. Initial investigation into the attack by Israeli forces found a chain of “special failures” and the deputy commander was fired.
A fragment of the projectile from the Israeli attack that struck the stairs outside Nasser Hospital is on display on Monday, August 25th, 2025 at the site of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip.
There is a contradiction in the list of extremists in Hamas that were killed
Israel has named six men who they said were extremists killed in the attack.
It provided no evidence, and one man on that list, Omar Kamel Shahada Abu Tayim, is not listed on the list of hospital victims obtained by the AP. The doctor and morgue workers say no one was killed by that name, and unlike the other five, Israel did not provide a photo.
According to the list of morgues, another person named Jumaa al-Najjar, Jumaa Al-Najjar, was a healthcare worker employed at Nasser Hospital. Another Imad al-Shaer was the driver of the civil defense first responder in Gaza.
The other three names will appear on the victim list, but other details about them were not immediately available.
The Ministry of Health and civil defense are part of the Hamas-run government. Israel has previously claimed that some emergency responders were extremists.
Speaking to multiple witnesses based on analysis of footage at the time of the attack, there is no evidence that the person killed in the strike was armed.
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Magiddy reported from Cairo. Associated Press reporters Melanie Ridman and Angela Charlton in Jerusalem and John Gambrell in Dubai contributed.
