Jerusalem, Feb 15 (EFE).- The Israeli army on Thursday raided Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, which has been under siege for 25 days.
Israel said the raid was carried out based on intelligence that Hamas – the Islamist group that governs the Strip – was holding some of the Israeli hostages at the hospital.
“We have credible information from a number of sources, including from released hostages, indicating that Hamas held hostages at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis and that there may be bodies of our hostages in the Nasser hospital facility,” a military statement said.
The Islamist group Hamas and other Palestinian militias are still holding around 130 hostages since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, of whom some 30 are believed to have died.
“Because Hamas terrorists are likely hiding behind injured civilians inside Nasser hospital right now and appear to have used the hospital to hide our hostages there too, the IDF is conducting a precise and limited operation inside Nasser hospital,” the statement added.
Nasser Hospital is the largest medical center in southern Gaza and the largest remaining operational medical center in the whole of the enclave.
As reported hours earlier by Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al Qudra, “the Israeli occupation” stormed the hospital on Thursday and turned it “into a military barracks after demolishing its southern wall.”
The Gazan Health Ministry said that one Palestinian was killed and several were wounded in an attack on the hospital’s Orthopedics department and that the Israeli army also attacked the department of ambulances and tents sheltering Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the medical compound.
Israeli forces insisted in its military statement that other Gaza hospitals such as Al Shifa, Al Rantisi Kamal Adwan and Al Amal, which have been raided and dismantled by Israel, have been “systematically” used by Hamas as “terror hubs.”
“Over 85% of major medical facilities in Gaza have been used by Hamas for terror operations,” according to the IDF, which has been heavily criticized by the international community and humanitarian organizations for its attacks on civilian infrastructure in Gaza, which has plunged the population into a humanitarian catastrophe.
According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, 130 health institutions have been partially or totally damaged by the Israeli attacks, which have forced 30 hospitals and 53 health centers out of service.
The last Israeli assault on a Gaza hospital took place on Feb. 9, when troops stormed Al Amal hospital, another major medical center in Khan Younis, which had been under siege for 19 days.
Health officials in Gaza said this week that the enclave’s remaining hospitals are overflowing.
After more than four months of war since the beginning of the conflict on Oct. 7, the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza is at least 28,663, while the number of wounded is 68,395, according to health figures.
The Israeli military insisted Thursday that it does not intend to disrupt the hospital’s operations, with patients and medical workers not obliged to evacuate the hospital.
The Gaza Health Ministry spokesman had previously indicated that “at dawn today and under shelling,” the soldiers “forcibly” imposed the evacuation of part of the displaced persons and relatives of the medical staff who remained in the center.
They also ordered the medical teams to move all the patients, “including those in intensive care and pediatrics”, to a specific hospital building, an almost impossible task for six patients requiring life support.
On Tuesday, the army ordered the evacuation of 10,000 Gazans who were sheltering in the medical compound. EFE
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