The Government Media Office in Gaza on Tuesday rejected what it described as Israel’s "misleading" narrative attempting to justify the strike on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, which killed 22 civilians, including five journalists.
The office said Israel "is trying to justify its crime by spreading a false narrative claiming that it targeted a camera belonging to resistance elements - an invalid claim lacking any evidence, aimed at evading legal and moral responsibility for a full-fledged massacre".
Israel's Channel 13 reported earlier Tuesday that a preliminary army investigation attributed the bombing to the presence of a Hamas "surveillance camera", which the army alleged "was used to monitor its activity in order to direct terrorist operations against it".
In response, the Gaza media office said in a statement that the "camera" in question "belonged to Reuters photojournalist Hossam Al-Masri, whom the [Israeli forces] killed in the first strike".
"After the first strike, civil defence teams, journalists, and humanitarian service providers rushed to rescue the wounded. The [Israeli forces] then surprised them with a second direct strike, deliberately and intentionally, leading to the killing of most of the victims in this massacre, which was broadcast live," it added.
The office said Israel follows a systematic policy of the "double strike", which it called "a criminal tactic prohibited internationally, revealing [Israel's] deliberate intent to inflict the largest possible number of civilian casualties".
It further accused Israel of falsifying the identities of the victims.
"Israel falsified the identities of the victims and published a list containing the names of [the six killed], identifying them as militants, but facts on the ground prove that some of them were killed outside the Nasser Medical Complex."
"One of those killed was targeted by the [Israeli forces] in the Mawasi Al-Qarara tents, as well as martyr Omar Abu Tim, who was killed elsewhere and at a different time, and his body has not yet been retrieved -contrary to what [Israel] claimed. The rest of the martyrs were civilians, most of whom were killed in the second strike, not the first," the statement continued.
Channel 13 reported that the Israeli army alleged "among the dead (in the attack on the Nasser complex) were 6 terrorists, including a person who participated in the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023".
But the Gaza media office insisted that "all the people who were on the external staircase of the targeted Nasser Complex were known by name and profession as journalists, civil defence personnel, and humanitarian workers, and were not wanted individuals".
The office described Israel’s account as "an extension of the old approach [Israel] follows in every crime, fabricating pretexts and inventing evidence to avoid international prosecution. Its repeated use of accusations against hospitals and civilian infrastructure of engaging in military activity aims to legitimise their bombing, which is completely contrary to all international laws".
It said Israel had "failed throughout the genocidal war to prove its claims and lies that hospitals or civilian infrastructure are linked to military activity".
The office called on the international community, UN institutions, human rights organisations, and the International Criminal Court to "take immediate action to hold accountable the perpetrators of the Nasser Medical Complex massacre, and to reject any narrative justifying the killing of civilians".
According to Palestinian official and medical sources, the victims of the Nasser strike included five journalists, a civil defence fire truck driver, four medical workers, and a sixth-year medical student.
The bombing drew sharp criticism of Israel worldwide, especially amid the collapse of Gaza's health system and the continued targeting of journalists during nearly 23 months of war.