Five patients have died at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis after an Israeli raid caused the facility to lose power, the Ministry of Health in Hamas-controlled Gaza said, as the World Health of Organization (WHO) decried the “deeply alarming” situation.
The ministry said the Nasser Medical Complex was “without electricity, water, food, and heating” in a statement on Friday morning, after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched the raid Thursday and detained a number of people.
The Gaza ministry also announced in a separate Friday morning update that two pregnant women had delivered children in the hospital “under extremely challenging and inhumane conditions.”
It later accused Israeli forces of forcing “male patients who are able to move and their companions to evacuate the old Nasser building without their belongings and relocate to the maternity building, which has been converted into a military barracks.”
The IDF pressed ahead with its raid on the facility Friday, and said in a statement they had detained more than 20 suspects relating to Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.
“Troops located weapons inside the hospital and apprehended dozens of terror suspects,” the Israeli military claimed in a statement on Friday. The IDF did not provide any additional details on the people detained or the nature of their alleged involvement in the Hamas attack.
The IDF’s raid on what was the largest hospital still functioning in Gaza has left international bodies deeply concerned. “The military raid at Nasser Medical Complex and reports emerging from the hospitals are deeply alarming,” World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said in Geneva on Friday.
“Patients, health workers, and civilians seeking refuge deserve safety, not peril in places of healing. Reports of forcing the transfer of many patients into a different building are gravely concerning.”
According to WHO, Nasser was already “barely functional,” with limited ability to provide urgent care.
Jasarevic said “critically injured and sick patients remain at the hospital. There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to the hospital to ensure the continuation of lifesaving services.”
“Further degradation of the facility means more lives lost, more illness and suffering,” he added. “The hospital is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza and must remain functional.
On launching its raid, the IDF said the operation was led by intelligence gathered in part from released hostages. Israel said it believed the bodies of dead hostages were being held inside the hospital. Hamas denied the claims, saying the group had “no business” at the hospital.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said Thursday evening that troops hadn’t found any hostages, but were continuing to scan the facility.
“Our forces were in the hospital the last few hours and looking for hostages. We haven’t found anything yet. But we are scanning the area, and we will pick anything that is relevant,” Hagari said during a briefing.
Hagari said using hospitals “for terrorist activities” and as military bases, as well as holding hostages there, were contrary to international law, though Hamas has denied those claims.
The IDF said that they had not targeted the hospital’s power supply, and that a generator malfunction had caused the power outage.
Despite the outage, “all vital systems” remained functional due to a backup power system, the IDF said, adding that troops with the Israeli military had also supplied an alternative generator, food for infants, water, and diesel fuel to the hospital.
Hospitals are protected civilian objects under international humanitarian law. It is illegal, with few exceptions, to attack medical facilities, or to otherwise prevent them from providing care. A hospital can only lose its protected status if it is used by an armed group for acts that are considered “harmful to the enemy.”
But, even then, patients and doctors inside are still protected by the principle of proportionality. A warning must be given, and time for safe evacuation, before carrying out an attack.
The surgeon, who asked not to be named for security reasons, added that the wards and corridors of the hospital are “flooded with beds” and that “most of the patients do not have the chance to get the medicine and their health care … We cannot make rounds on patients. We cannot move between beds.”
Israeli forces shelled the hospital early Thursday, killing and injuring an “undetermined number of people,” according to Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Since the attack, one of their colleagues remains unaccounted for.
MSF staff were forced to flee the hospital through a checkpoint set up by the Israeli military, the agency said, adding that one employee “was detained” there.