NEW YORK - Since Israel launched its retaliation for the Hamas-led attack just over a year ago, Shaaban al-Dalou, 19, had pleaded on social media for help getting out of the Gaza Strip.
A young man in a black jacket wearing earbuds in front of the rubble of a building.

Instead, the world watched him burn to death.

A video of Shaaban al-Dalou burning to death after an Israeli strike at a hospital has stoked criticism from Israel’s allies and highlighted the plight of people trapped in Gaza.

He was the son his mother boasted about: He memorized the entire Quran as a boy, and rose to the top of his university class. He wanted to become a doctor. But most of all, Shaaban al-Dalou dreamed of escape.

Mr al-Dalou wrote impassioned pleas on social media, posted videos from his family’s small plastic tent and even launched a GoFundMe page calling out to the world for help getting out of the Gaza Strip.

Mr. al-Dalou, 19, was identified by his family as the young man helplessly waving his arms, engulfed in flames, in a video that has become a symbol of the horrors of war for Gazans, trapped inside their blockaded enclave as the international community looks on.

On Oct. 14, Israel said it conducted a “precision strike” on a Hamas command centre operating near Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, a coastal city in central Gaza. Dozens of families like the Dalous, forced to flee their homes, had set up tents in a parking lot inside the hospital compound. They had hoped that international laws forbidding most attacks on medical facilities would ensure their safety.

The Israeli military said that the fire that erupted afterward was probably caused by “secondary explosions,” without specifying what that meant. It added that “the incident is under review.” This means nothing will happen.

Israel’s army has regularly forced captured Palestinians to conduct life-threatening reconnaissance missions to avoid putting Israeli soldiers at risk in Gaza, according to the New York Times investigation.