Some 10,000 people sought shelter in hospitals earlier this week.
Cairo/Jerusalem:
Israeli forces made the arrest at Gaza’s largest functioning hospital, health officials and the military said on Saturday, as airstrikes hit the entire enclave and heavy rains battered Palestinians taking refuge in Rafah.
Israeli forces attacked the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Thursday as they waged war against Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that rules the enclave.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said: “The occupying forces detained a large number of medical staff inside the Nasser Medical Center and they (Israel) turned it into a military base.”
The Israeli military said it was hunting militants in Nasser and had so far arrested 100 suspects at the site, killed the gunman near the hospital and found weapons inside the hospital.
Hamas denies accusations that its militants use medical facilities for cover. At least two freed Israeli hostages said they were being held in Nasser.
The Israeli incursion into the hospital has raised alarm about the patients, medical staff and displaced Palestinians who have taken refuge there.
Gaza’s health ministry said some 10,000 people sought shelter in hospitals earlier this week, but many either in anticipation of an Israeli attack or because Israel ordered evacuations.
Further south, in Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are in shelters, winter’s bitter cold caused some of the displaced people’s tents to blow away while rain flooded others, exacerbating an already dire situation. .
Israel’s plan to attack Rafah has raised concerns among the international community that such an action will drastically worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh accused Israel of a lack of progress in reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas said in a statement on Saturday.
Haniyeh added that Hamas would not accept any package that did not include a complete cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the “lifting of the unjust siege” and the release of Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences in Israeli prisons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “total victory” over Hamas but added on Wednesday that flexibility in the group’s stance could boost negotiations for a deal to release the hostages.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has devastated much of Gaza and forced nearly all residents from their homes. Palestinian health authorities said 28,858 people have died, mostly civilians.
The war began when Hamas sent militants into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli statistics.
Air strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 83 people since Friday, including one in Rafah on Saturday, health officials said. Rafah is an area bordering Egypt that Israel says is Hamas’s last bastion.
The Israeli military says its warplanes have killed several militants in fighting in Gaza since Friday.
Across the border, air raid sirens sounded in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Saturday, warning of incoming rockets.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
