Fears yesterday mounted for people trapped in one of Gaza’s main hospitals after Israeli troops raided the facility and the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said several patients had died there from a lack of oxygen.
The ministry said late on Friday that at least 120 patients and five medical teams were stuck without water, food and electricity in Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis.
Over the past few days, intense fighting has raged around the hospital — one of the Palestinian territory’s last remaining major medical facilities that remains operational.
Photo: AFP / Handout / Israeli Army
Israeli troops entered the hospital on Thursday, acting on what the military said was “credible intelligence” that hostages seized in Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Oct.7 last year had been held there and that the bodies of some might still be inside.
The army said it had arrested 20 people, seized weapons and retrieved “medications with the names of Israeli hostages” in the hospital.
A witness, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said that the Israeli forces had shot “at anyone who moved inside the hospital.”
Gaza’s health ministry also said power was cut off and the generators had stopped after the raid, leading to the deaths of five patients.
It said it held Israel “responsible ... considering that the complex is now under its full control.”
The Israeli army said that it had made every effort to keep the hospital supplied with power.
“Troops worked to repair the generator while ... special forces brought in an alternative generator,” it said.
However, the WHO on Friday slammed the Israeli operation, with spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic telling reporters that “more degradation to the hospital means more lives being lost.”
“Patients, health workers, and civilians who are seeking refuge in hospitals deserve safety and not a burial in those places of healing,” Jasarevic said.
Meanwhile, Egypt on Friday categorically denied allegations that it was participating in any process involving the displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip into the Sinai Peninsula.
Four sources said that Egypt, as a precautionary measure, is preparing an area at the Gaza border which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli offensive into Rafah prompts an exodus across the frontier.
The news was also reported by other outlets, including the Wall Street Journal.
“Egypt’s decisive stance since the beginning of the aggression ... is to completely reject any forced or voluntary displacement of Palestinian brothers from the Gaza Strip to outside it, especially to Egyptian territory,” Egyptian State Information Service head Diaa Rashwan said in a statement.
He said such scenario would entail “a definite liquidation of the Palestinian cause and a direct threat to Egyptian sovereignty and national security.”
The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, an activist organization, on Monday published images that it said showed construction trucks and cranes working in the area and images of concrete barriers along the border.
“Egypt has already had a buffer zone and barriers in this area for a long time before the current crisis erupted. These are measures taken by any country in the world to preserve the security of its borders and its sovereignty over its territories,” Rahswan said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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