Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip have repeatedly attacked hospitals. (document)
Jerusalem:
The Israeli army claimed on Thursday that the bodies of hostages may be being held after troops raided a hospital in southern Gaza that medics said had been under “siege” for a month.
The military said its troops were involved in a “precision and limited operation” inside the hospital in the city of Khan Younis after heavy fighting broke out between troops and Hamas personnel around the hospital.
“We have credible intelligence from multiple sources, including released hostages, that Hamas is holding hostages at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and that there may be bodies of our hostages in the Nasser Hospital facility,” it said in a statement Zhong said.
The military provided no evidence and did not immediately respond to AFP’s questions about when they entered the facility, for what purpose and whether soldiers had ever found hostages inside Gaza hospitals.
The health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza reported that thousands of people, including patients, seeking asylum at Nasser Hospital had been forced to leave in recent days.
Video circulating on social media, which AFP could not independently verify, showed dozens of people walking down a narrow alleyway as they left the hospital.
Another video clip showed rescue workers trying to move patients to safer rooms after reports of an attack on the hospital’s orthopedic ward.
Rescuers used mobile flashlights to drag one patient to a bed, while others carried another patient on a blanket amid falling debris.
Another video sent by Gaza’s health ministry showed a row of patients lying on beds in a crowded corridor of the hospital’s medical building.
A nurse told AFP about deadly sniper fire, sewage in emergency rooms and a lack of drinking water.
Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip have repeatedly attacked hospitals, insisting the facilities are used as command centers by Hamas operatives.
Hamas denies such accusations, and the Israeli military has produced no concrete evidence of such a command center.
“Critical” facilities
The World Health Organization describes Al-Nasser Hospital as a critical facility “for the whole of Gaza”, with only a few hospitals even partially operating.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday he was “shocked” by reports from Al-Nasser Hospital, which he called “the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza.”
Tedros wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the agency had been denied access to the facility in recent days and had lost contact with staff there.
Gaza’s health ministry called Nasser’s situation “catastrophic” and said staff were unable to move the body to the morgue because of the risks involved.
The military said its “mission is to ensure that Al-Nasser Hospital continues to fulfill its important function of treating patients in Gaza”.
Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that killed about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to AFP statistics based on official Israeli data.
Palestinian agents also took approximately 250 people hostage. According to Israeli officials, about 130 of them remain in custody in Gaza, and 29 of them are believed to be dead.
Earlier this week, Israeli forces rescued two hostages from a bombing in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that killed about 100 people, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
At least 28,663 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, mostly women, children and teenagers, according to the region’s health ministry.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
