Concerns are mounting over patients trapped at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, which the Israeli army stormed, claiming to have found “weapons” and “terrorists” there, while Hamas claimed the deaths of at least five patients.
According to the health ministry of Hamas, the Islamist movement in power in the Palestinian enclave, five patients died due to a power cut, which meant no oxygen was reaching their rooms, when Israeli army special forces invaded.
He added that he was concerned regarding the fate of seven more patients – four in intensive care units and three in the pediatric ward – and held the Israeli forces “responsible” both “for the deaths” and “for the health of the patients and staff” who remain there. .
Still according to the ministry, five medical teams caring for 120 patients are still in a hospital building without electricity, water, food and oxygen, while the Israeli army prevents the emergency evacuation of critically ill patients.
On Friday night, the Israeli military said via Telegram that it had found mortar shells, grenades and other Hamas weapons and had arrested “dozens” of suspects inside the hospital, including “more than 20 terrorists involved in the October 7 massacre.”
That day, Hamas’ military arm launched a raid from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel that killed more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
Since then Israel’s relentless shelling and retaliatory ground operations, which vowed to “wipe out” Hamas, have killed at least 28,775 people in the Gaza Strip, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the latest casualty count , which was made public yesterday Friday by the Health Ministry of Hamas.
According to Israeli sources, more than 130 Israeli hostages remain in the hands of Hamas in the Gaza Strip – but an army spokesman said last week that at least 31 of them are believed to be dead – of the approximately 250 kidnapped on October 7.
Unbearable situation
The Israeli military said Friday night that its forces found medicine inside the hospital with the names of hostages on it.
He also confirmed that he repaired the hospital’s generator, denying that he targeted the infrastructure that supplies electricity to the health structure, later adding that he installed a second one. He added that all of Nasser’s vital systems are working.
But doctors describe the situation in this hospital as unbearable, in a city turned into rubble, where fighting rages. Thousands of displaced people had taken refuge in Nasser to save themselves.
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières, MSF) reported yesterday that NGO workers were forced to “leave, leaving patients behind”.
“The situation was chaotic, catastrophic,” Christopher Lockyer, MSF’s secretary-general, told AFP.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Nasser Hospital, one of eleven that remain open out of a total of 36 in the pre-war Gaza Strip, is now “marginally functional”.
“The more damage is done to the hospital, the more lives will be lost,” his spokesman Tarik Jasarevic stressed during a press conference in Geneva yesterday, calling for urgent WHO access to the complex.
“Patients, medical staff and civilians who seek refuge in hospitals deserve safety, not to be buried in the spaces built to offer treatment,” he added.
At the same time, the international community is making appeals to convince Israel not to launch a large-scale ground attack in Rafah, where approximately one and a half million civilians are trapped, on the closed border with Egypt.
The European Union yesterday expressed “great concern” regarding this prospect, calling on Israel not to proceed with an attack on Rafah, which “would worsen the already catastrophic humanitarian situation”.
Giant camp in Egypt
Joe Biden, for his part, has called for a “temporary ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, expressing the “hope” that “the Israelis will not proceed with a massive ground invasion”.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited Egyptian officials, Egypt is building a refugee camp surrounded by high concrete walls to accommodate tens of thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
This is part of the “emergency response plans”, for the possibility of needing to host Palestinian refugees when the Israeli offensive on Rafah begins, and can host “more than 100,000 people” in tents, according to the American newspaper.
Palestinian leaders, the UN and many governments are increasingly concerned regarding the devastating consequences for the population that such an attack would have, and herald the creation of a new generation of refugees with no prospect of return.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Katz once once more reiterated his government’s determination to pursue Hamas.
#Hours #agony #patients #Han #Younis #Hospital #Gaza #Strip
