2024-02-16 14:36:45
Israel besieges the largest hospital still operational and continues to bomb Gaza
Officials announced that the largest hospital still operating in Gaza fell under Israeli siege on Friday, leaving patients and doctors helpless amid chaos, as warplanes bombed Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians in the Strip.
On Thursday, Israeli forces said they raided the medical complex. Video footage showed screaming and gunfire in dark corridors of the hospital at the time of the raid, which raised new concerns regarding the fate of hundreds of patients, medical staff, and many displaced Palestinians who took refuge in the hospital to escape the fighting.
The Israeli army described its operation in Nasser Hospital as “meticulous and limited,” and said that it was based on information that militants from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) were holding hostages in the hospital, with the possibility of the bodies of hostages being there.
An Israeli tank moves along the Gaza Strip border on Friday (AFP)
The Gaza Ministry of Health said on Friday that 5 patients died in the hospital’s intensive care unit as a result of a power outage and a cessation of oxygen supplies.
The World Health Organization stated that it was trying to reach Nasser Hospital following the Israeli raid. Its spokesman, Tarik Yasarevic, said: “There are still patients and seriously injured people inside the hospital… There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to ensure the continued provision of life-saving services… We are trying to reach out because the people who are still in the Nasser Medical Complex need help.”
The Israeli army stated that the forces arrested more than 20 Palestinians in the raid, who it said participated in the October 7 attack, and also arrested dozens of others for interrogation. He added that the soldiers also found ammunition and weapons in the hospital.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said earlier this week that there were 10,000 people taking shelter in the hospital, but many of them had left for fear that an Israeli raid was imminent.
Smoke rising from the Israeli bombing of Gaza on Friday (AFP)
The war broke out when Hamas, allied with Iran, attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.
Palestinian health authorities say that the Israeli air and ground offensive since then has devastated Gaza, killing 28,775 people, most of them also civilians, and forcing almost the entire population of the Strip, which numbers more than two million, to leave their homes.
All eyes on the hospital
Officials and witnesses say that Israel has bombed schools, universities, government institutions and mosques in its war once morest Hamas, which runs the Strip, saying that the movement’s leaders, which it has vowed to eliminate, are hiding in Gaza, perhaps in a complex underground tunnel network.
Health authorities in Gaza said that Israel forced dozens of employees, patients, displaced persons, and families of medical personnel who took refuge in Nasser Hospital to leave.
Children trying to get food distributed by a charitable organization in Rafah on Friday (AP)
The generators stopped and electricity was completely cut off from the complex.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that two women gave birth “under compelling circumstances, without water, electricity, or heating in light of these cold conditions.”
The Ministry said that Israeli forces inside Nasser Hospital forced women and children to go to the maternity ward, which they turned into a military zone. The women were not allowed to take any of their belongings.
International concern is increasing that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza will worsen sharply if the Israeli army decides to storm the border city of Rafah, south of Gaza, where more than half of the population of the densely populated Strip has taken refuge in anticipation of a major attack.
Health officials said that an Israeli air strike hit two homes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, killing 10 people and wounding others.
Reda Sobh, grieving the death of her sister in an attack in Rafah, said that the house was completely destroyed in a midnight attack, which also killed all of her sister’s children, her aunt, her husband, and her cousin.
She said: “No, Rafah is not safe. The entire Gaza Strip is targeted. Don’t say that Rafah is safe. From Beit Hanoun to Rafah, all of it is at risk. There is no safety at all. With God, there is only safety.”
In Khan Yunis, Israeli planes and tanks continued to bomb areas throughout the city.
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