The Israeli army said that a soldier was killed in fighting in southern Gaza, bringing its total losses since the start of the ground incursions on October 20 to 235.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Israel bombed the hospital in the early hours of the morning, although it told medical staff and patients they could stay.
“Our medical staff had to flee the hospital, leaving patients behind.” This was stated on the social media platform XIt added that one of its employees was detained at an Israeli checkpoint set up to inspect those leaving the complex.
Palestinians pray in a mosque damaged by an Israeli raid on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.credit: AP
The fighting at the hospital comes as Israel faces increasing international pressure to show restraint, after it pledged to continue its attack on Rafah, the last place of relative safety in Gaza.
Of particular concern were the attacks that destroyed the majority of medical facilities in Gaza, including Israeli raids on hospitals in other cities, shelling in areas adjacent to hospitals, and targeting of ambulances.
With massive bombing destroying large swathes of residential areas and forcing most people to abandon their homes, hospitals quickly became the focus of displaced people seeking shelter around buildings they believed were safer.
Israel accuses Hamas of regularly using hospitals, ambulances and other medical facilities for military purposes, and broadcast footage taken by its forces that it says shows tunnels containing weapons under some hospitals.
Israeli tanks move in an area on the border between Israel and Gaza, as seen from southern Israel.credit: AP
The army said it had arrested several suspects at Nasser Hospital and that its operations there were continuing.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said that Israel is lying about Nasser, as it did about other hospitals.
The video shows the chaos in the hospital
Israeli army spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said: “This sensitive operation was carefully prepared and is being carried out by Israeli army special forces who underwent specific training.”
He said one of the goals of the operation was to ensure the hospital was able to continue treating patients in Gaza, and “we communicated that in a number of conversations we had with hospital staff,” adding that there had been no commitment to evacuate.
The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that Israel forced doctors at Nasser Hospital to leave patients in intensive care.
The videos, which Reuters confirmed were filmed inside Nasser Hospital – although they could not verify their timing – showed a state of chaos and terror.
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The men walked through the hallways with phone flashlights, plaster dust swirling around them and debris scattered, at one point moving a bed across a damaged area.
In one video, gunshots are heard and a doctor shouts: “Is there anyone still inside?” “There is shooting, there is shooting, our heads are down.”
Another man said in a video clip that the Israeli army has surrounded the hospital and no one can leave it.
Muhammad al-Mughrabi, who was taking shelter in the compound, said that some people who tried to leave on Wednesday were shot and returned to the hospital.
“They said this morning that there was a safe passage, so we left, but it was not safe. They approached us with a bulldozer and a tank, insulted us and left us for four hours in the sun.”
The World Health Organization had previously said that half of Nasser's medical staff had already fled.
Israel said that its forces killed “a number of terrorists” in central Gaza and Khan Yunis during the past 24 hours, including about 15 Hamas fighters in Gaza City.
Reuters
