Local medical sources said that at least 13 people were killed and several others wounded in an artillery attack on the city of Afrin in northern Syria on Saturday.
The Turkish Ministry of Defense accused the Syrian Democratic Forces - whose main strength is the Kurdish People's Protection Units - of being responsible for the attack on the hospital, and said that it responded by bombing the Kurdish forces' positions in the area.
The ministry stated in a statement that the Kurdish forces in the Tal Rifaat area bombed civilian areas and Al-Shifa Hospital in the city of Afrin, in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, with artillery and missile strikes, noting that the attack killed 13 civilians and wounded a large number of civilians.
For their part, the Syrian Civil Defense crews in the city indicated that the bombing first hit a residential area, and then another bombardment shortly after that hit Shifa Hospital in the area.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that among the dead were a doctor, 3 hospital staff, 3 women and a child, in addition to a fighter from the opposition forces.
Video footage posted on social media showed the dead in the rubble of Al-Shifa Hospital.
On the other hand, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces denied responsibility for the attack, while the office of the governor of the Turkish province of Hatay, which borders Afrin, said it was investigating the incident, and that the missiles were launched from the Tal Rifaat area under the control of the Syrian government.
Turkey considers the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) a terrorist organization linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is located within its borders, and has made incursions into Syrian territory to support armed Syrian opposition against Kurdish fighters.