Israeli forces raid Gaza hospital after killing and wounding patients | World | News
Israeli forces stormed a major hospital in southern Gaza as part of a rescue mission to find Hamas hostages.
The Israeli army said it was a limited operation to find the remains of hostages taken by Hamas terrorists. The forces raided the site after Israeli fire killed a patient and injured six others inside the hospital.
It came a day after the army tried to evacuate thousands of people who had taken shelter at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. This city has been the focus of Israel‘s offensive against Hamas in recent weeks. With no end in sight for the war, the risk of a wider conflict is growing as Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah increase attacks.
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A released hostage told The Associated Press last month that she and over two dozen other captives had been held in Nasser Hospital. International law prohibits the targeting of medical facilities, but they can lose those protections if they are used for military purposes.
Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra announced that Israel had carried out a “massive incursion” with intense gunfire, injuring people who were already displaced and taking shelter. He explained that the military instructed medical staff to move all patients to an older building that wasn’t equipped to care for them properly.
Hezbollah has not taken responsibility for the rocket attack on Wednesday. However, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, a leading figure in the group, stated they are “prepared for the possibility of expanding the war” and will respond to aggression in kind.
Meanwhile, talks about a ceasefire in Gaza have hit a roadblock, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to keep up the fight until Hamas is defeated and hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the conflict are returned.
Nasser Hospital is in big trouble as it tries to help lots of people hurt in the daily bombings in Gaza.
A video shows doctors rushing to move patients in a smoky hallway. They use a phone light to see in a dark room where a man yells because he’s in so much pain, and there’s gunfire outside. The videos look real and match what reporters know.
Dr. Khaled Alserr, a surgeon at Nasser Hospital, said that the seven people hurt early Thursday were already in the hospital for other injuries.
“The situation is escalating every hour and every minute,” he shared.
The army told everyone to leave Nasser Hospital and the area around it last month. But like in other hospitals, doctors say it’s not safe for patients to go or be moved, and many people who had to leave their homes because of the fighting are staying there.
“People have been forced into an impossible situation,” Lisa Macheiner from Doctors Without Borders explained.
“Stay at Nasser Hospital against the Israeli military’s orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are a part of daily life.”
The international aid group, also known as MSF, had to abandon their hospital on Thursday due to safety concerns. One staff member was even held at an Israeli checkpoint just outside the facility.
The war, which has been going on for months, started when Hamas militants broke through Israel‘s defences on October 7th. They caused havoc in several communities, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.
During a cease-fire last year, more than 100 hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. However, about 130 captives are still in Gaza, with a quarter believed to be dead.
Israel‘s Prime Minister, Netanyahu, is under pressure to secure the freedom of the remaining hostages. But his far-right coalition partners could topple his government if they think he’s being too lenient on Hamas.
In response to the attack on October 7th, Israel launched a deadly military campaign. This has resulted in over 28,000 Palestinians being killed, 80% of the population fleeing their homes, and a quarter facing starvation due to a worsening humanitarian crisis. Large areas in northern Gaza, the first target of the offensive, have been completely destroyed.
Hamas keeps attacking Israeli forces all over Gaza and says it won’t let go of the captives until Israel stops its attacks and leaves. They also want lots of Palestinian prisoners freed, including big-name fighters.
Netanyahu calls these demands “delusional.” He’s planning to make Israel‘s attacks even bigger, going into Rafah, a city on the border with Egypt. Loads of people from Gaza, which has 2.3 million folks living there, have run away to Rafah to escape the fights happening in other parts of their home by the sea.
The Health Ministry in Gaza says that since the war started, at least 28,663 Palestinians have died, and many are women and kids. They don’t say who were fighters or just regular people. More than 68,000 have been hurt in this war.
