The United Nations is “urgently” seeking access to Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza after Israeli forces raided the complex, displacing patients and civilians and leaving the facility without power or water, local doctors and the Gaza Health Ministry said.
“We are, at the U.N., coordinating, asking, and looking for — urgently — access to the hospital,” Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, told reporters at a briefing Friday.
“There are critically injured and sick patients that are still inside the hospital,” he said. “There is an urgent need to deliver fuel and to ensure the continuation of the provision of life-saving services.”
The Israel Defense Forces stormed the medical compound in Khan Younis on Thursday, an operation it described as “precise and limited” and based on intelligence indicating the bodies of hostages were being held at the facility.
The IDF said Friday that its forces were still operating inside the hospital and had “apprehended dozens of terror suspects,” including at least 20 people the military accused of participating in the Hamas attacks inside Israel.
Hazem Bahloul, a physician at the hospital, also said early Friday that the compound had been without electricity or water for hours. In a statement, the Gaza Health Ministry said five people on ventilators died as a result of the blackout, and that two women were forced to give birth in “inhumane conditions” with no power, water, food or heating.
Even before the raid, Nasser Hospital was “barely functionable” because of the fierce fighting, Jasarevic said.
Still, it was “the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week.
The IDF ordered the evacuation of thousands of displaced people sheltering at the complex, and was relocating staff and patients to specific buildings, Bahloul and the Gaza Health Ministry said.
On Friday, the Israeli military ordered male patients to report to the maternity ward, where its forces established a makeshift military barracks, according to the Health Ministry. The IDF said it was “checking” on the report its troops had converted the maternity ward into a temporary base.
Bahloul said on Thursday that he moved to the hospital’s old internal medicine department with approximately 50 other health workers and 100 patients.
“Patients cannot easily move without putting their health in danger,” Jasarevic said Friday, calling the reports “concerning.”
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday that the hospital would continue “its important function of treating Gazan patients.”
“There is no obligation for patients or staff to evacuate the hospital,” he said, adding that medical supplies and equipment were transferred in coordination with international organizations.
Mohammed Harara, an emergency doctor at Nasser Hospital, uploaded a video Thursday that appeared to show part of the hospital in darkness, engulfed by thick dust and some rubble, while gunfire can be heard in the background. “We are attacked by the Israeli army at the hospital,” Harara says in the video. “Is there anyone still inside? There is gunfire! There is gunfire! Heads down!”
Doctors Without Borders, which has medical staff in the hospital, said some of its workers had to flee the facility, leaving patients behind. One was detained at a checkpoint while leaving the compound, the group said on social media, calling for his safety.
In a statement, U.N. Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani expressed concern over the raid, which she said came after a week-long siege that cut off medical, food and fuel supplies. She also criticized the movement of patients to different buildings, which she said exposes them to “grave risks.”
“The raid appears to be part of a pattern of attacks by Israeli forces striking essential life-saving civilian infrastructure in Gaza, especially hospitals,” she said, adding that the office has documented similar raids across the enclave that have “serious consequences for the safety” of patients, staff and civilians taking shelter.
The Israeli military began to encircle the hospital last month, alleging in late January that Hamas militants were operating “inside and around” the complex.
Footage and satellite imagery obtained by The Washington Post and published Thursday showed Egypt clearing and fencing off a plot of land along its border with the Gaza Strip, amid fears of Israel’s planned offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Egyptian and Israeli officials denied Friday that either country was planning for Palestinian refugees to be pushed out of Rafah and into Egypt.
“The State of Israel has no intention of evacuating Palestinian civilians to Egypt,” Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters Friday. “We respect and value our peace agreement with Egypt, which is a cornerstone of stability in the region as well as an important partner.”
In a statement Friday, Diaa Rashwan, head of the Egypt’s State Information Service, firmly denied that Egypt was preparing to accept Palestinian refugees, explaining that any fencing and clearing work was a routine measure meant to maintain the integrity of Egypt’s borders.
Rashwan added that Egypt’s position on Palestinian statehood demanded a “complete and irreversible rejection of any forced or voluntary displacement of Palestinian brothers from the Gaza Strip to outside it, especially to Egyptian lands.”
Frances Vinall in Melbourne and Cate Brown in Washington contributed to this report.
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