Dozens of Palestinians were seen leaving the besieged Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip after Israeli forces ordered the evacuation of the complex, but health officials say thousands people, including seriously ill patients, stay indoors.
Video footage shared with Tel Aviv Tribune showed crowds of displaced people, who had taken shelter inside the hospital, leaving on Wednesday. A doctor wearing a green hospital gown walked in front of the crowd, and some carried white flags.
Israeli forces ordered the evacuation of the compound on Tuesday. In a publication shared on social media platform whom he attacked during his months-long war.
The Israeli army – which used drones and loudspeakers to tell people to leave Nasser Hospital – said it had opened “a secure route” for civilians to exit, while doctors and patients could stay 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.
More than 2,500 people are still inside the compound, including displaced people, patients, doctors and their families, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf al- Qudra.
The situation at the hospital was already critical, but the last 24 hours have made the situation on the ground even more “scary”, MSF’s Guillemette Thomas told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“The situation is really critical for patients and we are worried about the future,” she said. Around 400 patients are in critical condition at the hospital, she added.
World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said Israel had denied the UN agency access to the Nasser Hospital since January 29.
“We tried several times to go there, but our requests were refused. We have heard reports that some 400 patients are still there, that 10 people have been killed and that a warehouse has been destroyed,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“They opened fire”
Dr. 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 to evacuate, they opened fire and shot people. And they also killed the hostage (whom they had sent inside),” 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 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 to reach them.
At least three people were killed by Israeli snipers near the facility in the past 48 hours, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting Wednesday from the town of Rafah, said Israeli forces had set up checkpoints along the road leading to Nasser Medical Center to force people to flee.
“The situation, by the hour, is becoming much more difficult and dire for the people trapped inside this medical facility,” he said. “Some people (who left), exposed to Israeli fire, were forced to return to the medical facility. »
Earlier, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Hani Mahmoud said Israeli forces destroyed one of the facility’s main gates.
“They destroyed the north gate of the hospital and blocked it with piles of sand and rubble. Only the eastern gate is open now,” he said, also from Rafah.
“There are tanks and armored vehicles parked in front of this gate. Facial recognition cameras are being installed… Based on past experience, the installation of facial recognition cameras and high-tech equipment means that mass raids and arrests will soon take place,” he said. he adds.
Israeli forces have attacked Gaza hospitals one after another since the start of the war, which has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, on October 7.
In the first 36 hours of the war, 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 functional.
