There were scenes of chaos and panic at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as Israeli forces stormed the medical facility in the southern Gaza Strip and Palestinians attempted to evacuate .
The Israeli army has besieged the facility for weeks, isolating thousands of patients, medical staff and displaced families – many of whom remain trapped inside. Verified video footage shows those who tried to flee on Thursday were attacked after leaving the hospital.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said Israeli troops were forcing 95 doctors, 191 patients and 165 displaced people into a former medical center building in “difficult conditions”, without water, food or milk for children.
“The Nasser medical complex is experiencing a catastrophic and worrying situation due to the reduction in medical capacities while fuel will run out in the next 24 hours, which directly threatens the lives of patients, including six on ventilators in intensive care and three children in intensive care. incubators,” al-Qudra said in a statement.
The Israeli military has accused Hamas of using the medical complex to hold prisoners, but it has not provided evidence to support this claim. The Palestinian group, which governs Gaza, vehemently denied this.
The raid displaced patients and medical staff who spoke of terrifying and harrowing conditions.
“I left with my husband, who is blind. I was doing kidney dialysis. They destroyed the walls surrounding us as well as the doctor’s room. They ordered us to leave and shot at us, fired bombs and rockets at our heads from above,” patient Rasmeya Saleem Abu Jamoos told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“They demolished the building. We left through the gate and walked through the sewers with my husband. The Israelis then took my husband away and I lost both my bags. I can’t find them,” she said.
The Israeli army, which used drones and loudspeakers to tell people to leave Nasser Hospital, said it had opened “a secure route” to allow civilians to exit while doctors and patients could remain inside.
However, witnesses and the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said people who had taken refuge inside were afraid to leave after learning that people had been shot as they went out. The Israeli army also shot people inside the hospital, including a doctor and a nurse.
MSF described a “chaotic situation” in the hospital after it was bombed early Thursday.
“Our medical staff had to flee the hospital, leaving the patients behind,” MSF said on X. One of its employees is missing and another was arrested by Israeli forces.
🔴 Gaza Update:
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, was bombed early this morning, although Israeli forces told medical staff and patients they could stay at the facility.
Thousands of displaced people were ordered to evacuate on February 13…🧵
– MSF International (@MSF) February 15, 2024
The Israeli army damaged two ambulances at the medical compound on Thursday, the Health Ministry said. Israeli soldiers also stormed the maternity ward and were “sweeping” the area, he added.
Israeli soldiers “threatened those inside with death and direct fire,” the ministry said.
Ahmed al-Moghrabi, head of the plastic surgery department at Nasser Hospital, recorded a message from inside the facility when the evacuation orders from Israel came.
“(The Israeli army) sent a hostage handcuffed to the hospital to ask him to tell us that we should evacuate. And when people really started evacuating, they opened fire, they shot people and they also killed the hostage,” he said.
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune on Wednesday evening, he said thousands of people, including seriously ill patients, were being held at Israeli checkpoints as they tried to flee the area. He also described the situation at the hospital as “dangerous.”
Nasser Hospital, the largest health facility in southern Gaza, has been under siege for around three weeks. The bodies of several people killed by Israeli sniper fire on the hospital grounds have been lying on the ground for days because it is too dangerous for staff to reach them.
Israeli forces across the Gaza Strip have repeatedly besieged and attacked hospitals, alleging that the facilities were being used as command centers by Hamas fighters.
Hamas denies this accusation and the Israeli army has shown no concrete evidence of the existence of such command centers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has described Nasser Hospital as a critical facility “for all of Gaza,” where only a minority of hospitals are even partially operational.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday he was “alarmed” by reports from Nasser Hospital, which he described as “the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza.” .
In October, during the first 36 hours of the attack on Gaza, Israel targeted the Nasser Hospital as well as the Indonesian Hospital and al-Quds Hospital, killing dozens of medical workers. By the end of November, 30 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals had been hit by Israeli rockets. Currently, only six hospitals in Gaza remain partially functional.
Gaza’s health ministry said at least 28,663 people had been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7 and at least 68,395 had been injured.
Israel began the assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters from the territory carried out attacks in southern Israel, killing at least 1,139 people, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune tally based on official Israeli figures.