Israeli forces raid south Gaza’s main hospital, saying hostages were probably held there
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces stormed the main hospital in southern Gaza on Thursday, hours after Israeli fire killed a patient and wounded six others inside the complex. The army said it was a limited operation seeking the remains of hostages who were seized by Hamas.
The raid on Nasser Hospital came after troops had besieged the facility for nearly a week, with hundreds of staffers, patients and others inside struggling amid heavy fire and dwindling supplies, including food and water. A day earlier, the army ordered thousands of displaced people who had taken shelter there to leave the hospital, which is in Khan Yunis, the city that has been the focus of Israel’s offensive against Hamas in recent weeks.
The war shows no sign of ending, and the risk of a broader conflict is growing as Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah step up attacks after a particularly deadly exchange Wednesday.
The Israeli military said it had “credible intelligence” that Hamas had held hostages at the hospital and that the remains of some might still be inside. Israel accuses the militant group of using hospitals and other civilian structures to shield its fighters.
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, though operations against them still must be proportional to any threat.
Gazans crammed into Rafah along the Egyptian border have no place to escape as Israeli attacks hit ever closer in a final bid to rescue remaining hostages.
As troops searched hospital buildings, they ordered the more than 460 staff members, patients and their relatives to move into an older building in the compound that isn’t equipped to treat patients, the Gaza Health Ministry said. They were “in harsh conditions with no food or baby formula” and severe water shortages, it said.
Six patients were left in intensive care, along with three infants in incubators with no staff to attend to them. The ministry said fuel for generators would soon run out, endangering their lives.
Separately, Israel launched airstrikes in southern Lebanon for a second day after killing 10 civilians and three Hezbollah fighters Wednesday in response to a rocket attack that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded several others.
It was the deadliest exchange of fire along the border since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Israel and Hezbollah — an ally of Hamas — have traded fire on a daily basis, raising the risks of a broader conflict.
Hezbollah has not claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s rocket attack. But Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, a senior member of the group, said it is “prepared for the possibility of expanding the war” and would meet “escalation with escalation, displacement with displacement, and destruction with destruction.”
Negotiations over a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, appear to have stalled, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until Hamas is destroyed and scores of hostages taken during the militants’ Oct. 7 cross-border attack that sparked the war are returned.
More than three months into the Israel-Hamas war, the families of hostages held in Gaza have grown disillusioned with Israel’s military operations.
Panic at hospital
Nasser Hospital has been the latest focus of Israeli military attacks that have gutted Gaza’s health sector as it struggles to treat scores of patients wounded in daily bombardments.
Israeli troops, tanks and snipers have surrounded the hospital for at least a week, and fire from outside has recently killed several people inside, according to health officials.
“There’s no water, no food. Garbage is everywhere. Sewage has flooded the emergency ward,” said Raed Abed, a wounded patient who was among those who left Nasser Hospital on Israeli orders Wednesday.
Still suffering from a severe stomach wound, Abed said he initially collapsed as he got out of his hospital bed and tried to leave. He then waited outside for hours as troops made those leaving pass by five at a time, arresting some and making them strip to their underwear, he said. Finally, he walked for miles until he reached the border town of Rafah, where he was put in a hospital. Lying in a bed there, he wheezed in pain from his wound as he spoke.
Overnight, a strike slammed into one of Nasser Hospital’s wards, killing one patient and wounding six others, Dr. Khaled Alserr, one of the remaining surgeons there, told the AP.
Video showed medics scrambling to move patients down a corridor filled with smoke or dust, while in a dark room a wounded man screamed in pain as gunfire echoed outside.
“The situation is escalating every hour and every minute,” Alserr said.
Experts say Israel’s deadly raid on a West Bank hospital may have violated international laws, including a ban on combatants posing as doctors or civilians.
The international aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, said that its staff had to flee the hospital Thursday, leaving patients behind, and that one staffer was detained at an Israeli checkpoint just outside the facility.
Hours after troops entered the hospital, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said they were still conducting searches. He said dozens of militants were arrested on hospital grounds, including three who participated in the Oct. 7 attack. He said that troops found grenades and mortar shells, and that Israeli radar determined that militants fired mortar rounds from the hospital grounds a month ago.
Teenage friends Angelina, who is Palestinian, and Adar, who is Jewish Israeli, talk about the Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel’s war on Gaza. ‘It’s OK to disagree.’
No end to war in sight
The war began when Hamas militants burst through Israel’s formidable defenses on Oct. 7 and rampaged through several communities, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 240 others hostage. More than 100 of the captives were freed during a cease-fire last year in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
About 130 captives remain in Gaza, a fourth of whom are believed to be dead. Netanyahu has come under intense pressure from families of the hostages and the wider public to make a deal to secure their freedom, but his far-right coalition partners could bring down his government if he is seen as being too soft on Hamas.
Israel responded to the Oct. 7 attack by launching one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history.
At least 28,663 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 68,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. About 80% of the population have fled their homes and a quarter are starving amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe. Large areas in northern Gaza, the first target of Israel’s attacks, have been destroyed.
Israeli media reported that CIA Director William Burns flew to Israel to meet with Netanyahu to discuss efforts for a cease-fire.
Hamas says it will not release all the remaining captives until Israel withdraws and frees a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants.
Netanyahu has rejected those demands and says Israel will soon expand its offensive into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, on the Egyptian border. More than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge in Rafah after fleeing fighting elsewhere in the coastal enclave.
Airstrikes late Wednesday in central Gaza killed at least 11 people, including four children and five women, according to hospital records. Relatives gathered around bodies wrapped in white shrouds outside Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al Balah before the remains were placed in a truck to be taken for burial.
One man struggled to let go, lying down and holding one of the bodies on the truck as he wept.
Shurafa reported from Rafah, Mroue from Beirut and Lidman from Jerusalem. AP writer Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
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