Gaza’s Health Ministry says the enclave’s medical system is perilously close to collapse after a double-tap drone strike in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, north of Gaza City, killed a teenage student and a paramedic. The ministry warned that restricted access to fuel and medical supplies is tightening pressure on hospitals and called on UN bodies to intervene immediately.
Local footage circulated on social media showed a paramedic, named by authorities as Sharif Shadi Labad, wounded amid rubble after an initial strike. People moved to assist him and a second drone struck the same spot. That follow-up attack, which observers believe used a Mikholit guided glide bomb, killed Mohammad Abdul Zinati, 15, whom his father said was returning home from school, and wounded others.
Video later showed Zinati’s body at al-Shifa Hospital covered in a white shroud while his father recited the Quran, saying in Arabic, “God is sufficient for me, and he is the best disposer of affairs.” Civil Defence personnel carried the paramedic’s body at a funeral procession, chanting for the martyr and pledging to continue the struggle.
Double-tap strikes are intended to hit a location, wait for rescuers and bystanders to gather, then strike again to inflict higher casualties among those who respond. The tactic has been reported repeatedly during the current war, including an August 2025 attack on a wing of Nasser Hospital that killed 20 people, among them health workers and six journalists, including photographer Mohammad Salama.
Attacks have continued since a US-brokered ceasefire was announced in October 2025. Gaza authorities report that since that month at least 1,381 people have been killed and 4,757 wounded in near-daily strikes. Overall tolls since the start of the war in October 2023 stand at least 73,795 dead and 174,869 wounded. UNICEF reported last month that more than 64,000 children were killed or injured in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and October 7, 2025, and its regional director said, “A ceasefire that leaves an average of one child dead each and every day is failing children.”
The Health Ministry has urged the UN Security Council, the World Health Organization and OCHA to step in as fuel and supply shortages worsen. Gaza’s Civil Defence issued an urgent plea after a war-damaged building in Gaza City collapsed this week, killing at least 20 people, including women and children, a reminder of the immediate humanitarian danger if aid does not increase.
