HEALTHCARE workers in the Gaza Strip are having to wear civilian clothing when they leave hospitals as wearing scrubs is a “target sticker on their back,” an intensive care doctor has said.

Dr Tanja Haj-Hassan, a paediatric intensive care doctor for Doctors Without Borders, told Sky News of the “direct and systematic” targeting of healthcare staff by the Israeli military as she detailed how innocent workers had been executed “point blank” at the al-Shifa hospital.

It comes after the hospital was left in ruins following a two-week raid by Israel. Hamas has claimed the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) killed 400 people in the compound.

According to the IDF, the facility was used to harbour Hamas fighters and cited the killing of 200 militants including senior operatives. However, the UN health agency said several hospital patients had died and dozens were put at risk during the raid.

In an interview with Aaron Bastani, Haj-Hassan was asked if Hamas were there and were fighting with the Israelis to which she then detailed the horrendous reality healthcare workers are currently facing.

She said: “I am just shocked we are still having this conversation. They executed tens of people point blank including one of our colleagues who is a very experienced plastic surgeon, him and his mother who is also a physician.

“To say this is a strategic targeting of Hamas is an insult to our intellect and our humanity.

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“This is a destruction of people who heal. This is a direct targeting of healthcare workers.

“I just want to paint a very brief picture of what healthcare workers are telling me there. They’re saying that when they leave the hospital civilians give them civilian clothing because wearing scrubs is sticking a target sticker on their back.

“That is how systematically healthcare has been targeted.

“I worry [what] is coming to the remaining hospitals in the Gaza Strip because what has been the pattern and we will not ignore it, is a direct and systematic targeting of healthcare that is unjustifiable.”

Haj-Hassan also talked of colleagues who had been detained for more than 100 days who she did not know were alive or dead.

 Bastani described the interview as “extraordinary” on Twitter/X.

Palestinians who fled al-Shifa have described days of heavy fighting, mass arrests and forced marches past dead people, while the Hamas-run health ministry described the scale of the destruction inside the complex as “very large”.

“Dozens of bodies, some of them decomposed, have been recovered from in and around the Al-Shifa medical complex,” the health ministry said, adding the hospital was now “completely out of service”.

Most of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer functioning, the UN has said.

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Elsewhere, seven people working for food aid charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) have been killed in another Israeli strike in Gaza.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said all seven were recovered in a "challenging operation spanning several hours" in Deir al-Balah this morning, after being targeted yesterday evening in vehicles owned by the WCK charity.

All seven were initially taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, then moved to a medical facility in Rafah in preparation for evacuation through the border crossing with Egypt in the south of Gaza.

Israel's military says it is conducting a "thorough review" into the incident.