United Nations officials who led evacuation missions from Gaza’s Nasser Hospital have described “appalling” conditions at the enclave’s second-largest medical facility, saying an Israeli military operation there has turned it into a “place of healing” into a “place of death”.
The comments, contained in videos posted online Wednesday, come amid growing concern for the dozens of patients and staff who remain trapped inside the hospital as Israeli forces intensify their bombardment in The area.
The hospital, located in the Gaza town of Khan Younis, stopped functioning last week after a week-long Israeli siege followed by a raid, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The global health agency, in collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), has so far managed to evacuate some 32 patients in a critical condition, including injured children and paralyzed people.
Jonathan Whittal, an OCHA official who participated in the February 18 and 19 evacuation missions, said patients at the hospital were in a “desperate situation” and were stuck without food, water and electricity.
“The conditions are terrible. There are dead bodies in the corridors,” he said. “It has become a place of death, not a place of healing.”
The rescue mission previously said it had to navigate dark corridors with flashlights to find patients against a backdrop of gunfire. They had to arrive on foot because a deep, muddy ditch near the hospital made roads near the site impassable.
“You can think of the worst situation ever. You multiply that by 10 and it’s the worst situation I’ve seen in my life,” said WHO staff member Julio Martinez. “It is the debris, it is the light – working in the darkness. Patients everywhere.
According to Palestinian health authorities, at least eight patients have already died at the facility, mainly due to a lack of fuel and oxygen. They claim that the lives of those remaining were directly threatened and accuse Israeli forces of effectively transforming the site into “military barracks”.
Chris Black, WHO communications manager, said the entire area around the hospital had been “damaged and destroyed”.
“The hospital itself has no electricity, no food, no water,” he added.
The WHO said around 130 seriously injured patients and 15 doctors were still at the site.
Despite the desperate situation, the hospital’s doctors and nurses were not pleading for evacuation, but for the restoration of hospital functions, according to one of their former colleagues.
“Last week was miserable. It’s been a nightmare (for hospital workers). The things they see are traumatic and they are asking for help,” said Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a U.S.-based emergency room doctor who spent several weeks as a volunteer at Nasser Hospital in January.
“In fact, they are not asking to be evacuated from the hospital but for the hospital to function. To get the lights back on, to get the medicine they need to treat the remaining patients,” he said.
“I spoke to one of the last surgeons left there, who sent a message to a group of doctors here in the United States, and he asked us to advocate for the patients who are there. He told us, ‘I look at the patients, and they need my help, they need my care, and I can’t do anything,’” Ahmad added.
The WHO said it was continuing efforts to evacuate more patients.
The agency, in a statement released earlier this week, described the dismantling and defacement of Nasser Hospital – the latest medical facility to become a theater of war in the conflict between Israel and Hamas – as a “heavy blow » brought to the Gaza health system. He said the remaining facilities in the south were “already operating well beyond maximum capacity” and were barely able to accommodate additional patients.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 29,092 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel.
Some 1,139 people have been killed in Hamas attacks in Israel.