Israeli troops storm the largest hospital in southern Gaza after besieging and attacking it for days

Israeli troops had been surrounding the Nasser medical complex for days in the city of Khan Younis, the largest in southern Gaza and where the fighting is currently concentrated. This Thursday, they finally broke into what is the largest hospital in the south of the Strip, where thousands of internally displaced people had taken refuge, thinking it was a safe place. The Israeli Army has once again demonstrated that not even health centers are health centers since this is not the first to besiege, attack, assault and evict.

The Ministry of Health of Gaza, controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, has denounced in a statement that the army has broken into the Nasser complex and has turned it into “a military base”, after having demolished the southern wall of the complex to enter in it. Next, the military forced the displaced people who were housed inside the health facility, as well as the doctors and their families, to leave “under attacks and threats,” according to Health, which had already reported that Israeli snipers were shooting at people. inside the Nasser complex.

The NGO Doctors Without Borders, which has staff at that hospital, says in a statement that on February 13, an Israeli military excavator destroyed the north door of the hospital complex and ordered the displaced people to leave through it. He allowed health workers and patients to remain in the hospital “with a limit of one caregiver per patient,” but the conditions in which they are working are “almost impossible.” MSF project coordinator in Gaza, Lisa Macheiner, denounces that “people have been forced into an impossible situation: remain in the Nasser hospital against the orders of the Israeli Army and become a potential target, or leave the premises. to an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are part of daily life.”

According to MSF, at least five people have died in the past few days in the Nasser facilities and, since the 13th, most of the displaced have left, although they have nowhere to go because they cannot return to their homes nor do they want to go. to the south, after Israel has threatened to expand its ground operations to the town of Rafah.

The NGO denounces that the evacuation of the Nasser hospital is not an isolated event and that since the beginning of the war, “MSF medical teams and patients have been forced to evacuate nine different health centers in the Gaza Strip, after receiving fire. of tanks, artillery, fighter aircraft, snipers and ground troops, or be subject to an evacuation order.

For its part, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced this Thursday that they are carrying out a “precise and limited operation” at the Nasser hospital, with the aim of finding members of Hamas, including some suspected of being involved. in the attack on October 7 against Israeli towns – which left some 1,200 dead.

“On Tuesday, the IDF officially contacted the director of the Nasser medical center and requested the immediate cessation of all Hamas terrorist activity from inside the hospital, and the immediate evacuation of Hamas terrorists from the hospital,” he added in a statement. It is not the first time that Israel accuses Hamas of operating from a health facility and even hiding in tunnels under a hospital, as in the case of Al Shifa, in Gaza City.

Besides, the IDF has ensured that they have “credible” intelligence information indicating that Hamas held some of the hostages kidnapped in the Nasser center in Khan Younis and that their bodies could be in that facility. In fact, the Ministry of Health has reported that troops have begun to dig mass graves in the hospital courtyard, where deceased patients had been buried. According to its statement, the Army has asked the Nasser administration to move all patients, “even those in the ICU,” to the old hospital building.

On Thursday afternoon, Health reported that Israeli troops have forced 95 health workers, 11 of their relatives and almost 200 patients to relocate to the old building, where they do not have food or milk for babies, and water is scarce. . In a statement, he described the situation in the medical complex as “disastrous and worrying” due to the lack of resources and the shortage of fuel, which may run out in the next 24 hours.