The image of a person burning alive among tents in a hospital compound in Gaza has been widely shared online.
Warning: This story contains details and images readers may find distressing
The video captures the moments after an Israeli strike on al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah on Monday, in which medics said three people were killed and 40 others were wounded.
The person in the flames was 19-year-old Shaban al Dalu. He was just days away from his 20th birthday.
In the footage he appears to be connected to an IV line, though Sky News was unable to independently verify what the object shown is.
Here, Sky News looks at his story, as our analysis reveals the compound had been struck six times this year.
Shaban was sheltering in a tent in the compound of the hospital with his parents and five siblings. In a YouTube video he posted in February speaking from a tent he built, he said they had been displaced five times.
At the time of the strike, Shaban was recovering from an injury he had suffered 10 days ago.
Image: Shaban al Dalu was burnt alive after an Israeli strike on a hospital compound
Shaban’s 16-year-old brother Mohammed identified him in the video of the fire following the strike.
He told Sky News: “My father was busy with my younger brother so I couldn’t help but run towards Shaban to try to help him. People stopped me from getting closer to the danger, saying the civil defence was on its way to put the fire out.
“I kept saying ‘but my brother is on fire! My brother is on fire! Please let me go.’ They wouldn’t let me. My brother was burning in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything to help him. It’s an indescribable feeling.”
Their mother, Alaa, was also trapped and died in the inferno.
Shaban, a computer system engineering student, was trying to leave Gaza and had launched a fundraising page online.
“I used to have big dreams, but the war has ruined them. It has taken a toll on me, making me physically and mentally sick… Time feels like it’s stopped in Gaza, and we’re stuck in a never-ending nightmare,” Shaban wrote on his GoFundMe page.
Image: Shaban al Dalu
Image: Shaban and his family before the invasion of Gaza
Shaban’s 14-year-old cousin Tasnim was also at the compound when the Israeli strike hit. He told Sky News: “I really don’t understand what we did to deserve this? We’re displaced families. Moving around from one place to the next. That’s all we can do. What did we do wrong?”
Satellite pictures taken on Saturday shows dozens of tents or makeshift shelters in the grounds. Many displaced Palestinians have sought refuge in hospital grounds since the start of the war.
Image: Satellite imagery showing al Aqsa hospital compound on 12 October. Pic: Maxar
The strike has been criticised by UN acting under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Joyce Msuya, who said “there seems to be no end to the horrors that Palestinians in Gaza are forced to endure”.
The Israeli military said it was a “precise strike on terrorists” operating in a “command and control centre” in a car park next to the hospital.
Israel accuses Hamas of using civilian facilities like hospitals for military purposes, which Hamas denies.
IDF international spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, said a “fire ignited” in the hospital’s car park after the strike, adding that it was “most likely due to secondary explosions. The incident is under review”.
Sky analysis of previous attacks on the compound shows it has been hit six times since the end of March.
Image: Locations of attacks in hospital compound over 12 October satellite imagery. Pic: Maxar
The first occurred on 31 March. The IDF hit a location close to the hospital’s main building, claiming it was targeting a command centre used by the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.
As it does now, the affected area was occupied by tents.
The head of the World Health Organization said that strike caused four deaths and 14 injuries.
X
This content is provided by X, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to X cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow X cookies for this session only.
The compound was hit again on 22 July. The IDF has not made a public statement on this strike.
Video from the scene shows tents reportedly used by journalists on fire. At the time, Associated Press reported that one person was killed.
On 4 August, the IDF targeted another area of the compound. At least five people were reportedly killed.
In comments to the media, the IDF said the strike was targeting a militant in the area.
On 5 September, an Israeli strike hit an area in the west of the compound. While the IDF did not confirm the strike’s precise location, it claimed it had targeted a Hamas command centre in the area.
Before Monday, the most recent strike at the hospital compound occurred on 27 September, when an area covered in tents was hit.
While the IDF did not comment publicly on this strike, components of a missile are visible in footage from the scene. Markings on the debris identify it as a Hellfire missile, which are used by Israel and other US allies.
Speaking to Sky News, former US army explosive ordnance disposal technician Trevor Ball said the fragment was from a Hellfire missile.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
Image: An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
Image: A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
Image: A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Image: Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Image: Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:21
Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
Image: A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:44
Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
More on Gaza
Related Topics:
Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Image: A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:08
‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Image: Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
Follow The World
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.