The paramilitary group says it ‘liberated’ the camp from the control of the army after launching ground and aerial assaults on Friday.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has announced that it took control of famine-hit Zamzam camp in the western Darfur region, after two days of heavy shelling and gunfire there and in nearby areas that killed at least 100 people, including children and aid workers.

The RSF said in a statement on Sunday that it deployed “military units to secure civilians and humanitarian medical workers in Zamzam … after successfully liberating the camp entirely from the grip of” the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

The paramilitary group on Friday launched ground and aerial assaults on North Darfur’s besieged capital of el-Fasher and the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps.

The United Nations said on Saturday that more than 100 people were feared dead in the RSF attacks, while an army-aligned faction led by Darfur Governor Minni Minnawi on Sunday put the toll at more than four times that.

The RSF denied targeting civilians inside Zamzam, saying that the SAF was using the camp as a “military base” and using civilians as “human shields”.

In recent weeks, the RSF has stepped up its attacks on refugee camps around el-Fasher in its effort to seize the last state capital in Darfur not under its control.

About 180km (112 miles) east of el-Fasher, in Um Kadadah, activists also reported that the paramilitary killed 56 civilians over two days of attacks on a town they seized on the road to el-Fasher.

The RSF has also been accused by rights groups of using brutal sexual violence as a weapon against civilians.

The fighting intensified after the army last month recaptured the capital Khartoum, around 1,000km (620 miles) to the east.

The conflict has essentially divided Sudan in two, with the army holding sway in the north and east, while the RSF controls most of Darfur and parts of the south.

The war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million and created what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Zamzam and Abu Shouk are among five areas in Sudan where famine was detected by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, IPC, a global hunger monitoring group.

An estimated 25 million people – half of Sudan’s population – are now facing extreme hunger.

A predawn Israeli strike on al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, the last major hospital providing critical healthcare in northern Gaza, has sparked condemnation in Palestine and across the world as Israel continues to attack healthcare facilities.

Israel on Sunday claimed it struck a Hamas command and control centre at the hospital, without providing evidence, while Hamas denied the allegations.

The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which runs al-Ahli Hospital, condemned the attack, saying it occurred on “Palm Sunday, the start of the Holy Week, the most sacred week of the Christian year.”

It said the twin strikes demolished the hospital’s two-storey genetic laboratory and damaged the pharmacy and the emergency department buildings.

The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine, which is affiliated with the Anglican Church, said the attack constituted “a grave violation of religious sanctity and fundamental principles of international humanitarian law”.

The head of the committee, Ramzi Khoury, asserted that the attack was a direct affront to Palestinian Christians and the global Christian community.

Britain’s Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said in a statement on Sunday: “The Anglican-run Ahli Hospital in Gaza is a place of healing and care for Palestinians living through unimaginable suffering. In unbearable conditions, its heroic doctors and nurses have cared for civilians who have endured 18 months of devastating violence”.

“For the only Christian hospital in Gaza to be attacked on Palm Sunday is especially appalling. I share in the grief of our Palestinian brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Jerusalem,” he said.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the bombing forced the evacuation of patients and staff. “We call on international institutions and relevant authorities to protect the health sector in accordance with international laws and agreements,” it said in a statement.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) said the “heinous aggression” was “part of a systematic series of attacks targeting hospitals, schools, shelters and tents for the displaced in Gaza, within the context of a systematic war of extermination that violates all humanitarian and moral standards”.

PIJ blamed Israel for sowing panic among patients and staff by issuing a warning shortly before the strike. “The international silence on Gaza is forcing it to become a graveyard for law and humanity,” it added.

International condemnation: ‘Attacks on health care must stop’

Hospitals have special protection under international law. Israel has besieged and raided them nevertheless, some several times, and struck multiple ones while accusing Hamas of using them as cover for its fighters. Last month, Israel struck Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest hospital in southern Gaza, killing two people and causing a large fire.

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the hospital was out of service and a child had died as a result of the disruption of care.

The hospital was also forced to move 50 patients to other health centres, but 40 critical patients could not be moved, Tedros added.

“Attacks on health care must stop,” the WHO chief wrote on X. “Once again we repeat: patients, health workers and hospitals must be protected. The aid blockade must be lifted. Ceasefire.”

Al-Ahli hospital in #Gaza is out of service following this morning’s evacuation order and attack – @WHO has received an update from the hospital’s director. A child died due to disruption of care.

The emergency room, laboratory, emergency room X-ray machines and the pharmacy…

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) April 13, 2025

British Foreign Minister David Lammy said Israel’s bombing of medical facilities had “comprehensively degraded access to healthcare” in the enclave.

“Al-Ahli Hospital has been attacked repeatedly since the conflict began. These deplorable attacks must end. Diplomacy not more bloodshed is how we will achieve a lasting peace,” Lammy wrote on X.

Qatar said the attack on the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza was a “horrific massacre and a heinous crime against civilians” that constituted a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

The Foreign Ministry warned about the expansion of the cycle of violence across the region and said the international community must assume its responsibilities in protecting civilians.

Jordan also condemned the attack as well as Israel’s systematic targeting of civilians in Gaza and the destruction of vital facilities that provide essential services to its population.

Egypt, too, issued a statement, calling the attack a grave violation of international humanitarian law and international norms and appealing for the international community’s intervention in halting the attacks.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock questioned the modalities of the strike but stopped short of condemning the attack. “The cruel Hamas terror must be combated. But international humanitarian law applies, with a special obligation to protect civilian areas. How can a hospital be evacuated in less than 20 minutes?” she asked in a post on X.

Gaza City, Gaza – Yousef Abu Sakran was dozing next to his injured child and wife, Iman, in a tent ward at al-Ahli Arab Hospital when the sounds of people running and shouting woke him up.

He stepped into the hospital courtyard well before dawn on Sunday to ask what was happening but found no clear answer, only vague news that the Israeli army had made calls to people living around the hospital, demanding the expulsion of everyone in the medical facility.

The 29-year-old father reacted instantly. He scooped up his five-year-old son, Mohammad, and he and Iman ran towards the gate.

Mohammad has severe injuries across his body, including third-degree burns on his back and legs, but Yousef had to keep running with him.

“I was carrying my son, whose body was burned, and running while he screamed,” Yousef said. “His back was bleeding – his wounds were bleeding heavily – and he was screaming in agony.

“[So many people’s] injuries reopened from the sudden movement. I saw the family of a girl with spinal injuries trying to pull her bed, but it was stuck in the debris.

“Just seconds after we left the hospital, it was struck by two missiles that shook the entire place. I told my wife: ‘Imagine if we had been a minute later. We’d be dead.’”

Where to go with an injured boy?

Yousef and his wife were in the street with everyone else from the hospital.

“It was around 2am, and I had no idea where to take my injured son. He was in pain and bleeding. There were no clinics or hospitals, and the tent we live in is very far and completely unsuitable for his condition.”

Mohammad had been injured in an Israeli air strike on a block of homes in Gaza’s Shujayea neighbourhood, which killed more than 20 people and wounded dozens.

An hour after the hospital was bombed, Yousef and his wife decided there was nothing they could do other than take Mohammad back to al-Ahli.

“The place was pitch-black, and it reeked of gunpowder and dust. I went to the surgery building at the far end of the hospital, where I found a nurse who took pity on Mohammad’s condition, treated his wounds and admitted him.”

Bombing a hospital like this, Yousef said, is a stain on humanity’s conscience.

“They bomb our homes over our heads and then bomb hospitals while patients and the wounded are inside. Where are we supposed to go?

“Isn’t all this grief and suffering enough?”

Dragging himself out of danger

Suhaib Hamed, 20, was asleep in another tent ward, right next to the hospital’s emergency building, which was hit.

Hamed was injured when he went to fetch flour for his starving family on February 29, 2024 – a day known as the “Flour Massacre“, during which Israel killed 109 Palestinians and wounded dozens while they waited for food aid.

He was shot in the leg by Israeli tanks, damaging his bones and tissue to the point that he needed metal implants and has been in the orthopaedic department since then.

“My brother, who usually stays with me, wasn’t there. I don’t even know how I managed to stand on my injured leg, grab my crutches and flee,” Suhaib told Al Jazeera as he exited the surgery department after having the wounds to his leg cleaned and checked.

“I forgot my pain because of what I saw around me. Everyone was screaming in terror and fear, just trying to survive. It felt like the Day of Judgement.”

Suhaib also managed to get out of the hospital minutes before two Israeli missiles landed.

“My leg couldn’t handle it any more, and my wound reopened and started bleeding again.”

He couldn’t keep walking, so he stopped and called his brother, who came and supported him to their home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, a half-hour’s walk for a healthy person on undamaged roads.

The pain in his leg kept Suhaib up, but he was also worried about the hospital being forced to close.

“I’ve been staying in the hospital [for more than a year] because of my condition,” he said. Suhaib has a medical referral to travel outside Gaza for treatment but has been waiting to leave for a year.

“Isn’t the closure and banning of our travel enough? They even target the hospital that was still treating us with the little that’s available.”

Making a catastrophic situation worse

The Israeli strike on al-Ahli has exacerbated an already catastrophic situation for Gaza’s healthcare system, which has been collapsing as Israeli bombardments and a blockade on medicines, medical supplies and fuel continues.

In the panic that ensued because Israel did not give hospital staff even the bare minimum of time to evacuate patients, a child died due to lack of oxygen, Fadel Naeem, director of al-Ahli, told Al Jazeera.

Israel destroyed the vital emergency, radiology, laboratory and central pharmacy departments, the doctor continued.

“We’ll need weeks or months to resume operations,” he noted. “This hospital is a hub for services and includes all essential facilities, including the only CT scan machine available.

“The fate of patients and the wounded is now unknown. We’ll have to distribute them to other hospitals, but no hospital is equipped to provide full services.”