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<h1>At least five patients dead after Israeli army raid on Nasser Hospital</h1><p class="gmail-article__subhead gmail-css-1wt8oh6"><em>Army arrests 20 people in the raid, saying some were involved in Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel.</em></p><div class="gmail-responsive-image"><img src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AA-20231217-33205986-33205981-ISRAELI_ATTACKS_ON_GAZA_CONTINUE-1702858944.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80" alt="Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Nasser Hospital to receive medical treatment following Israeli attacks in Khan Yunis, Gaza." width="391" height="260" style="margin-right: 25px;"></div>Injured
Palestinians, including children, are brought to Nasser Hospital to
receive medical treatment in Khan Yunis [File: Ahmed Zagout/Anadolu
Agency]<div class="gmail-article-info-block gmail-css-ti04u9"><div class="gmail-article-b-l" style="border-color:rgb(250,144,0)"><div class="gmail-article-dates" style="border-color:rgb(250,144,0)"><div class="gmail-date-simple gmail-css-1yjq2zp"><span class="gmail-screen-reader-text">Published On 16 Feb 2024</span><span aria-hidden="true"> - </span><font size="1"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/at-least-five-people-dead-after-israeli-army-raid-on-nasser-hospital">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/at-least-five-people-dead-after-israeli-army-raid-on-nasser-hospital</a></font></div></div></div><div class="gmail-social-share-buttons"><div class="gmail-update-reading-list"></div></div></div><div class="gmail-update-reading-list"><span class="gmail-update-reading-list__tooltip" role="tooltip"></span></div><a class="gmail-social-share-button" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Share on Facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fdotkfs"></a><a class="gmail-social-share-button" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Share on Twitter" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=At%20least%20five%20patients%20dead%20after%20Israeli%20army%20raid%20on%20Nasser%20Hospital&source=sharethiscom&related=sharethis&via=AJEnglish&url=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fdotkfs"></a><a class="gmail-social-share-button gmail-copylink" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="copy link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/https://aje.io/dotkfs"><span class="gmail-copylink__tooltip gmail-copylink__tooltip-hidden"></span></a><p>Israel’s incursion into <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/15/catastrophic-situation-at-gazas-nasser-hospital-amid-israeli-raid">Nasser Hospital</a>
in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip has led to the deaths of at
least five patients after electricity was severed and oxygen supplies
cut, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.</p>
<p>The hospital is currently the largest functioning medical facility in Gaza and had been under Israeli siege for weeks.</p>
<p>“We hold the Israeli occupation forces responsible for the lives of
patients and staff, considering that the complex is now under their full
control,” the ministry said.</p>
<p>In a statement on Telegram, it added that two women gave birth in
“inhumane” conditions and Israeli soldiers forced women and children to
leave the maternity unit without any belongings.</p>
<p>Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) said its
staff have also been forced to flee as a result of the incursion.</p>
<p>“The Israeli forces set up a checkpoint for people as they left the
compound, and one of our colleagues was arrested at this checkpoint. We
call for preserving his safety and protecting his dignity,” MSF added.</p>
<p>The Israeli army said it had arrested more than 20 “terrorists” based
on “intelligence indicating terrorist activity by Hamas in the
hospital”.</p>
<p>Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands
said Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for the Israeli military, alleged that
some of those detained were involved in the October 7 attacks inside
Israel, including an ambulance driver.</p>
<p>“The Israeli military also believes there are bodies of Israeli
captives somewhere on the grounds of Nasser Hospital, and that is
another reason troops are involved in the ‘precise and limited
operation’ at the health facility,” Challands said, adding that the
military also said it found weapons, including mortars and grenades,
among people arrested.</p>
<p>Hamas has denied any presence inside Nasser Hospital.</p><p>“We have repeatedly said the policy of our Palestinian resistance is
and remains to distance public and civilian institutions and the health
sector from any military activity,” Hamas said in a statement.</p>
<p>“We have asked the United Nations and relevant organisations on
several occasions to bring an international committee to examine the
hospitals and prove that Israel’s narrative is a lie. But our demands
have not been heard.”</p>
<p>Israel has previously claimed that several hospitals in Gaza have been used as Hamas bases.</p>
<p>However, since destroying large parts of Gaza City’s al-Shifa
Hospital during an attack last year, Israeli evidence has fallen short
of its claims that the medical facility was used as a Hamas
headquarters. The attack led to the deaths of Palestinian patients and
staff at the hospital as well as some of the thousands of people who had
been sheltering there,</p>
<p>Instead, its repeated attacks on hospitals have been described by
human rights groups as “unlawful” with Human Rights Watch calling for
them to be <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/14/israels-attacks-on-hospitals-should-be-investigated-as-war-crimes-hrw">“investigated as war crimes”</a>,
and South Africa alleging at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
in The Hague that attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system were evidence of
“genocidal acts” committed by Israel.</p>
<h2 id="gmail-we-stand-helpless">‘We stand helpless’</h2>
<p>For patients and staff stranded in the hospital raid, the situation
is “catastrophic”, according to Dr Nahed Abu Taima, director of the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/15/catastrophic-situation-at-gazas-nasser-hospital-amid-israeli-raid">Nasser Medical Complex</a>.</p>
<p class="gmail-p1">“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 on Friday.</p>
<p class="gmail-p1">“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.”</p>
<p>Reporting from Rafah, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the tragedies
unfolding at the hospital are also “a continuation of the psychological
warfare” against Palestinians, who are finding that no place is safe in
the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>The World Health Organization (WHO) said it is trying to get access to Nasser Hospital.</p>
<p>“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,”
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.</p>
<p>“WHO has warned many times that depriving patients of life-saving
care and forcing the movement of the sick and injured could lead to the
deterioration of their condition or even death. Patients’ health must be
prioritised, and uninterrupted care in a safe environment must be
ensured,” he added.</p>
<p>Dr James Smith, an emergency room physician who previously worked in
Gaza hospitals, said that what Israel’s military is doing at Nasser
Hospital “is a complete neglect of the rules that guide conduct during
armed conflict”.</p>
<p>Noting an interim <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/13/south-africa-asks-icj-to-help-halt-israels-planned-rafah-offensive">ruling last month</a>
from the ICJ that Israel must do all it can to prevent genocide in
Gaza, Smith told Al Jazeera that this also means the international
community must do more to halt Israel’s war crimes.</p>
<p>“That [ICJ ruling] places immediate moral, political and legal
obligations on all world powers, particularly those that up until this
moment continue to finance and provide diplomatic support for the
Israeli state.”</p>
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