It is an innocuous term for a horrible tactic. A “double tap” sounds so innocent and unthreatening. In fact, it is a term saved for a particularly brutal kind of attack.
And so it seems was the fate of those who died in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza. First one strike hit the building, ripping away a chunk of the wall and injuring the people inside.
Fifteen minutes later, as rescuers and journalists rushed in, and as the scene was being broadcast live, a second explosion ripped through the courtyard, killing those who had come to help.
Latest updates: Israel strikes Nasser hospital
So the first tap causes harm and brings people to the scene; the second inflicts yet more devastation upon the people who came to help.
It’s a tactic that’s been used by a variety of countries over the years, most recently by Russia in Ukraine and, enthusiastically, by Bashar al Assad while he was president of Syria.
This time, it left more than 20 people dead, among them medics, patients, and five journalists. The scenes of carnage were horrendous – we saw images of death and destruction. One man, a journalist who survived the explosions, was filmed sitting in the hospital, his head and body soaked in blood, utterly dazed.
Nasser is the last fully functioning hospital in southern Gaza. To see it struck again was, in the words of British surgeon Professor Nick Maynard, “barbarism in the extreme”.
He told Sky News: “This hospital has been bombed several times over the last 22 months. It is murder. These are war crimes killing innocent civilians. As barbaric as anything I have seen in Gaza.”
Relatives and friends pray over the body of journalist Mariam Dagga.
Among the dead was photographer Mariam Daqqa. Hours before her death, her name appeared on the front page of a leading Israeli newspaper, a credit for a haunting photo she had taken of an emaciated child.
Her press vest, recovered from the rubble, was later laid across her coffin while her camera, still marked by her own blood, was held aloft.
