‘Like the end of the world’: Gazans describe horrific experience of evacuations from hospitals

Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed more than 29,000 Palestinians

After Israeli forces stormed Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, Palestinian medical staff, patients and displaced people carried out a horrific and chaotic evacuation at night as gunfire echoed around them.

Survivors of last week’s attack on Gaza’s second-largest hospital said they then trudged toward safety in the dark, passing bodies along the way.

A male nurse was detained at an Israeli checkpoint, stripped naked and led away screaming, a doctor said.

“There was smoke everywhere, it was like the end of the world and people were running away,” said Dr. Ahmed Mugrabi, chief of plastic surgery, who fled with his wife and children.

Mughrabi, who took refuge with his family in a shelter near another hospital where he now works, said the Israeli army had ordered everyone to evacuate except patients who were unable to walk and the medical staff caring for them.

Details of the military attack on Al-Nasser hospital emerged as people who fled or were evacuated arrived in Rafah. Rafah is the last relatively safe place in the Gaza Strip, about six miles (10 kilometers) from the Egyptian border.

Israel described the attack as a precision operation by special forces to recover the bodies of Israeli hostages. Patients and staff are under no obligation to leave and efforts are being made to ensure the hospital can continue to operate, the statement said.

But the raid alarmed aid agencies, with the World Health Organization saying the extent of damage was “indescribable”.

The U.N. health agency World Health Organization has conducted two evacuations from Al-Nasser Hospital since Thursday but said on Tuesday it was concerned about the nearly 150 patients and medical staff remaining at the hospital as fighting continued.

Israeli forces entered the hospital last Thursday after besieging it and said they detained hundreds of agents hiding there, some of whom were posing as hospital staff.

Hamas denies using the hospital and calls Israel’s accusations “lies.” Gaza’s health ministry said Israel detained 70 staff and volunteers working at the facility.

The World Health Organization said the hospital ceased operations last week and no longer has electricity or running water after the Israeli siege and attacks, leaving medical waste and garbage as a breeding ground for disease.

Drone fire, ‘aggressive dogs’

More than four months after the war began, Nasser Hospital is the largest hospital still operating in Gaza, according to Israeli statistics. The war began on October 7, when militants from the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages.

Health authorities in the Hamas-controlled enclave say Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed more than 29,000 Palestinians.

Hakeem Salim Hussein Baraka said the orthopedics department at Al-Nasser Hospital, where he had worked as a volunteer, was destroyed and he saw a patient cut in half by the blast.

Baraka said a “quadcopter” drone opened fire on medical staff taking a break from their shift, and “aggressive” dogs worn by the Israeli military with cameras hung around their necks roamed the hospital.

The Israeli military said its troops experienced “complex fighting” before entering the hospital compound and came under rocket attack from militants inside the hospital. Troops are said to have discovered a large number of weapons and vehicles linked to the October 7 attack.

“We gave people a chance to evacuate before entering the hospital,” Colonel Moses Tetro told a news conference. Asked if there was gunfire or fighting inside the hospital, he said: “No.”

Rasmeya Saleem Abu Jamoos, a dialysis patient who fled with her blind husband Abu Jamoos, said Palestinians left the hospital before dawn and some were not allowed to No wading in sewage.

She said he was among those detained at a military checkpoint after being discharged from hospital.

Dr. Mugrabi said his ward came under Israeli fire and he believed three patients were killed in the attack. Reuters could not confirm this.

He said he and his family left the hospital with three patients and some staff, but one of the department nurses was stopped.

“They made him take off all his clothes, made him naked, and then took him to the detention center. I could hear him screaming,” he said.

Those who managed to pass the checkpoint then had to walk long distances across the battlefield to seek help, Mugrabi said. Some people are sick or injured.

Baraa Ahmed Abu Mustafa, who uses mismatched crutches, said someone shot them over the head as they went and there were bodies near the hospital entrance.

“I was injured and I walked away for an hour,” he said. “It’s dangerous and the road conditions are not good.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)