Israeli snipers have killed at least 21 people in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza, where displaced Palestinians were gunned down trying to reach Nasser Hospital.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah, says that Israeli snipers are surrounding the area of Nasser Hospital and “shooting at every moving object” as people are trying to reach it from the two densely populated residential neighborhoods from the eastern and the western part of the hospital.

“The area around the hospital is very dangerous, and it has turned into a combat zone,” he said, noting that the hospital area is the only place right now in Khan Younis that has some water left.

Israeli snipers are drawing international condemnation over killings of civilians and medical workers inside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

The Israeli military’s repeated attacks on medical facilities, doctors, nurses, medics and ambulances must be investigated for war crimes, human rights groups said.

“Hospitals and other medical facilities are civilian objects that have special protections under international humanitarian law or the laws of war,” Human Rights Watch noted.