Israeli soldiers yesterday stormed the Nasser hospital in Khan Iunis, in southern Gaza, and forced some of the people inside to leave it, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, and confirm the israeli army. Israel reported that its forces were operating inside the hospital because they had information that there were bodies of hostages in the facility. “We have credible information from various sources, including released hostages, that Hamas is holding hostages at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Iunis and that there may be bodies of our hostages in the hospital premises” , assures a military statement.
Moments before the Israeli confirmation, the health authorities in Gaza stated: “The Israeli occupation storms the Nasser medical complex and turns it into a military barracks after demolishing its southern wall,” reported health spokesman Aixraf al-Qudra, who added that the army also attacked the ambulance sector and IDP tents in the medical compound. “On the verge of daylight today (for yesterday) and under bombardment”, the soldiers imposed “by force” the evacuation of displaced persons and relatives of the medical staff who were in the center, he added.
They also ordered the medical teams to transfer all patients, “including those in intensive care and pediatrics”, to a specific hospital building, an almost impossible task for six patients who need assisted breathing. A few hours earlier, in the middle of the siege of the center, a Palestinian was killed and several were injured in an Israeli attack on a room full of patients. Images shared on the networks show medical personnel moving the wounded in a room filled with smoke, debris and debris.
According to medical sources consulted by the Efe agency, the Israeli soldiers occupied the second floor of the medical complex and asked everyone, including the medical teams, to leave the upper floors and go down to the lower floors. The same source indicated by telephone that a large number of Israeli army dogs had searched different areas of the complex.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which has staff working in the hospital center, the largest in the south of the enclave, already warned on Wednesday that the day before the army had destroyed the north gate of the compound and had ordered all the displaced , about 10,000, who left the place, without having a safe refuge. For almost a month now, the health authorities and the oenages working at the site have been denouncing the siege of the Israeli forces around the medical center.
According to Sanitat, until yesterday there were still around 1,500 displaced people in the hospital, where the situation is “catastrophic”, in addition to around 190 members of the healthcare staff and around 300 of their family members. Among the admitted patients “there are 273 patients who cannot move”, of which 18 are in intensive care and 35 on dialysis, which made it difficult to evacuate them in the face of the Israeli order.
Likewise, sewage floods the emergency service and medical and non-medical waste accumulates in the departments and courtyards of the complex, according to Sanitat. Those gathered at the site were also left without drinking water or food, and there are almost no drugs or medical supplies “for intensive care, operations or emergencies”.
The Nasser hospital serves southern Gaza, where Israeli troops have been carrying out a ground offensive since early December, which also involved the siege of the city’s other hospital, Al-Amal, where more of 8,000 people were already evacuated last week.
According to MSF, the troops allowed medical staff and patients to stay in the hospital, “with a limit of one caregiver per patient”, while the oenagé staff “continues in the building and treats patients in almost impossible conditions”. “After weeks of intense fighting near Nasser hospital, medical staff, patients and displaced people found themselves trapped in the compound with very little access to basic supplies,” reports MSF.
