Medics at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis stand helpless as the Israeli occupation forces go ahead with their brutal raid in one of Gaza’s remaining health facilities.
On the 133rd day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, tragic news has been emerging on the Israeli deadly raid on the Nasser Hospital.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said that five patients died after electricity was severed and oxygen supplies were cut at the complex.
It added that the Israeli occupation forced women, children at the facility to move without any luggage into the maternity unit which has been turned by the occupation into a military barracks.
Soldiers also raided the administrative building of the complex.
Scenes from the orthopedic department in Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis the moment when Israel’s military targeted it killing one person and wounding others last night.#GazaGenocide #RafahMassacre pic.twitter.com/aSEWC6JvZV
— Alina Sajid (@AlinaSa2561813) February 16, 2024
Earlier, the director of Nasser Medical Complex said that the situation at the hospital is “catastrophic”.
“We were forced to transfer all the patients and the wounded to the hospital’s old building,” Dr Nahed Abu Taima said, adding that Israeli forces were rounding up patients and civilians taking shelter in the hospital.
“Electric power was cut off from the entire medical complex. Many patients in ICUs and those on oxygen supply and also those on dialysis are left fighting for their lives since 3am [02:00 GMT],” Taima told Al-Jazeera.
“We stand helpless, unable to provide any form of medical assistance to the patients inside the hospital or the victims flooding into the hospital every single minute,” he added.
Palestinian media also reported that several arrests were made during the ongoing raid.
WHO Wants Access to Hospital
For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) demanded to get access to Nasser Hospital as Israeli troops continue to raid the facility, where hundreds of civilians are trapped.
“There are still critically injured and sick patients that are inside the hospital,” WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.
“There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to ensure the continuation of the provision of life-saving services. … We are trying to get access because people who are still in Nasser Medical Complex need assistance.”
Death Toll Nears 29,000
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry said that 112 Palestinians have been martyred and 157 others have been wounded over the past 24 hours.
The ministry put the death toll since the start of the war at 28,775, while adding that the number of injured people reached 68,552.
Furthermore, the number of journalists killed in Gaza has risen to 130 since the start of the war, according to the government media office in the Strip.
Day 133 | The genocide continues.
These children were displaced from Khan-Younis and fled to Rafah for safety, only to be terrorized and wounded in their sleep from inside of their tent. pic.twitter.com/Pe3nhZh6uY
— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) February 16, 2024
Exodus from Rafah
Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli occupation military has launched a new wave of air raids and artillery fire in southern Gaza, forcing Palestinians to flee overcrowded Rafah in advance of a feared ground invasion that world leaders have condemned.
The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, said on Thursday that people, already displaced several times in the four-month conflict, were heading to Deir Al-Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Rafah was a designated “safe zone” and the last refuge for Palestinians forced to escape Israeli attacks by land, air and sea across the rest of the enclave. An estimated 1.4 million Palestinians found some measure of security there in tents and makeshift shelters.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths warned that Palestinians in Rafah might be forced into Egypt if the Israeli occupation launches its planned military operation against the border city.
“The possibility of a military operation in Rafah, with the possibility of the [border] crossing closing down, with the possibility of spillover … a sort of Egyptian nightmare … is one that is right before our eyes,” Griffiths told diplomats at the UN in Geneva on Thursday.
Source: Agencies and Palestinian media (translated and edited by Al-Manar English Website)
