CAIRO: Gaza’s largest functioning hospital was under siege on Friday in Israel’s war with Islamist group Hamas, leaving patients and doctors helpless in the chaos, as warplanes struck Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians in the enclave, officials said.
Israeli forces said on Thursday they had raided the medical complex as footage showed shouting and gunfire in dark corridors in an incursion that raised fresh alarm over the fate of hundreds of patients and medical workers and the many displaced Palestinians who had sought shelter there from the fighting.
Israel’s military called the raid on Nasser Hospital “precise and limited” and said it was based on information that Hamas militants were hiding and had kept hostages in the facility, with some bodies of captives possibly there.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Friday that five patients at the hospital died in intensive care as a result of power outages and the cessation of oxygen supply.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday it was trying to reach Nasser Hospital, after the Israeli raid.
“There are still critically injured and sick patients that are inside the hospital,” WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.
“There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to ensure the continuation of the provision of life-saving services… We are trying to get access because people who are still in Nasser medical complex need assistance.”
The Israeli military said troops had detained more than 20 Palestinians it said had been involved in the Oct. 7 attack in the raid and detained dozens of others for questioning. It said soldiers had also found ammunition and weapons in the hospital.
The Gaza Health Ministry said earlier this week that there were 10,000 people sheltering at the hospital but many had left because they feared the Israeli raid was imminent.
The war began when Iran-backed Hamas sent fighters into Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has since devastated tiny, Gaza, killing 28,775 people, also mostly civilian, according to Palestinian health authorities, and forcing nearly all of its more than 2 million inhabitants from their homes.
“Altogether, 600 people were forced by the occupation soldiers to move … to one of the three buildings, which is the oldest. There is only one elevator working. They had to carry patients by hand, carrying them on their backs. And now they are crammed in the narrow corridors of this building,” Gilbert, who has previously worked in Gaza, told media from Oslo.
“They say that the situation in the hospital for the patients and the staff … is unbearable. There are constant attacks.”
Gilbert shared a text message he received from the ground reporting “shooting and bombing everywhere” around the hospital.
“Please stop this madness, stop this war,” the message read. “This is a hospital facility, not a battlefield.” –Agencies
