Gaza Health Ministry: Over 274 Palestinians killed in Israeli operation in Nuseirat that released 4 prisoners, Hamas spokesperson says more prisoners killed

Deploying aerial bombardment, tanks and special operatives, Israeli forces killed over 274 Palestinians on Saturday in the Nuseirat Camp and elsewhere in central Gaza during an operation to retrieve and release four of the prisoners held by Hamas.

Medical and emergency services struggled to respond to the scale and severity of injuries and deaths, according to Mada Masr correspondents in Gaza.

Unnamed United States officials confirmed that the US supported the Israeli effort to rescue the four prisoners during Saturday’s operation, according to reports in several US outlets. On Saturday, Egypt — a main mediating partner in the talks between Israel and Hamas — “strongly" condemned the attack on Nuseirat in a statement by its Foreign Ministry.

Israel’s military extraction of the prisoners — which caused one of the highest death tolls of any operation during the past nine months of Israel’s war on the besieged coastal enclave and, according to a Hamas spokesperson, killed other Israeli prisoners — came as the government in Tel Aviv continues to refuse a ceasefire agreement that would include the phased release of all prisoners and a halt to all military activity in the strip.

Israel launched its operation at 11 am on Saturday, said Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari. The Israeli military,  the Israeli Security Agency and the Israeli police forces took part, said another military spokesperson in a statement early on Saturday afternoon.

The four prisoners — among over 200 captured during Hamas’ October 7 attack on settlements adjacent to the Gaza Strip — were reportedly retrieved from two different locations in central Gaza.

Hagari said on Saturday that 120 Israeli prisoners remain held in Gaza. The Israeli military has said that at least 42 of those are thought to have been killed.

Besides the four which were rescued, some of the Israeli prisoners held in Gaza were killed in the Saturday release operation, said Abu Obaida, spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

Resistance factions in Gaza released over 100 of the prisoners in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinian prisoners in a short-lived truce in November.

Hagari stated that during Saturday's operation, an officer from the Israeli police counter terrorism unit, Chief Inspector Arnon Zmora, incurred severe injuries which later led to his death.

A US official cited in Axios said that the US hostage cell in Israel supported the effort to rescue the four hostages, while CBS cited two US officials as confirming that US intelligence supported the Israeli operation.

Two hundred and seventy four people were killed and 698 were injured in the operation, said the Gaza Health Ministry in a statement on Sunday morning.

Several eyewitnesses described Occupation airstrikes targeting the Nuseirat market on Saturday morning when the square was crowded with residents and displaced people.

Abdel Salam Darwish, a resident of Gaza who was in the market at the time, told Mada Masr that he was walking with his friend when heavy munitions struck the square, followed by drones which bombarded them, killing his friend. "We were in the market, just normal people, shopping and reciting praises for Eid, when suddenly the area turned into a courtyard full of mangled body parts. My friend was blown to pieces. I could only recognize him from a ring on his finger,” Darwish said.

A former resident of Gaza City who was displaced to Nuseirat Camp said that suddenly he and his family found multiple types of aircraft and missiles, and special forces around them. Another resident of Nuseirat Camp who was injured in the attack, Tawfiq Anwar Abu Youssef, described special forces opening fire on him and others in the vicinity of Maqbara Street, adding that his house collapsed while he was in it.

Special forces in civilian clothes entered the marketplace at around 11:20 am, while tanks also entered the area at an unknown time, with the intrusion followed by shooting from quadcopter drones and Apache shelling, according to a Mada Masr correspondent. Nuseirat Camp’s Block 5 was completely destroyed with its residents still inside, and the intensity of ongoing explosions, bombing and missiles meant that no civilians, rescue teams or ambulances were able to evacuate any of the wounded, until the Occupation withdrew. 

Ambulances continued to transfer the injured and martyred until the evening, and the bodies of the dead were transferred piled up on horse-drawn carts and trucks, according to Mada Masr’s correspondent.

Darwish said Occupation forces prevented rescue teams from reaching Nuseirat to retrieve the bodies of the dead and injured. They even fired toward anyone attempting to enter the camp, he said, specifically blocking the International Committee of the Red Cross crews from entering the area. 

A spokesperson for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital told the press on Saturday afternoon that 55 fatalities had been delivered to the hospital already, along with dozens of injured people. He added that more of the dead and injured were lying in the street pending transfer to hospitals. Al-Aqsa hospital became overcrowded and there was no more space to accommodate people, said the spokesperson, urging residents in central Gaza to head to the hospital and donate blood. 

A video shared online by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza showed medics tending to injured people laying on blankets packed tightly on the floor of a hospital ward.

Hospital administrators at the Nasser Medical Complex in central Gaza told Mada Masr that 70 of the wounded were transferred to the complex for treatment due to limited capacity at hospitals in central Gaza.

Palestinian medics have said that Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is currently operating using a single generator due to the lack of resources in the besieged strip.

Mostafa al-Hawajra, who was wounded in the operation, said that he was moved from Al-Aqsa hospital, to the Awda Hospital in central Gaza, and finally to the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza for his injuries to be tended to.

Claims emerged shortly after the operation that the pier erected on Gaza’s coastline by the US military was used in the operation — something the Israeli military spokesperson and US officials later denied.

Videos shared online showed an aid truck which was said to have entered the area via the US pier, and to have been carrying forces who participated in the operation. Other video footage showed a helicopter taking off on a strip of coastline adjacent to the pier, claiming it was evidence of the pier’s use on Saturday.

The Israeli military denied that its forces boarded an aid truck to conduct the operation, and denied that they had used the pier. US Central Command likewise denied that the pier had been used. 

Hamas nevertheless released a statement on Saturday evening saying that, “the US participation in the criminal operation today as revealed in the US and Hebrew press proves once again the complicit role of the US administration and its full participation in the war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.”

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that the US commends the work of the Israeli forces who conducted the “daring operation” on Saturday, adding that “the United States is supporting all efforts to secure the release of hostages still held by Hamas, including American citizens.”

Sullivan’s statement added that “this includes through ongoing negotiations or other means.”

Although US President Joe Biden gave a speech at the end of May calling for Israel and Hamas to return to the negotiating table for a prisoner exchange and ceasefire deal, the talks — mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the US — made little progress in the ensuing weeks. Hamas officials refuse a deal framework which does not encompass Israel’s full withdrawal from the strip, while Israel has reportedly sought US guarantees that it would be allowed to continue pursuing the war after prisoners are exchanged.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces continue their aggression on Palestinians in the strip, launching an operation in central Gaza over the past week, which included the deployment of ground troops to central Gaza and heavy bombardment on the Nuseirat camp, eastern Deir al-Balah and the Bureij camp.