Israeli forces storm largest hospital in southern Gaza, evacuate thousands to Rafah, including medical staff, injured people

The Israeli military stormed Nasser Medical Complex, the second biggest hospital in the Gaza Strip, on Thursday morning, evacuating thousands of people who were at the facility and making dozens of arrests.

Occupation forces deployed heavy gunfire while entering the facility, demolishing its southern wall and turning it into military barracks, said Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra on Thursday.

A few medical staff and patients remain crowded into a single building in the complex, said a doctor still at the complex in footage shared by the ministry.

Even the medical staff, who were ordered to remain inside the hospital on Wednesday while it was under siege, have now been told to leave.

“Displaced people left on Wednesday while the medical staff, the injured and the elderly remained inside, as per the instructions we heard on microphones,” Doctor Islam al-Souany told Mada Masr.

“But after midnight, the Occupation warned us to evacuate the complex and threatened to storm it if we did not get out,” she continued.

Qidra added that the Israeli military forced the hospital's administration to keep intensive care patients in the building without the medical staff, who were ordered to evacuate on Wednesday night.

“We were forced to get out of the complex, children, women, the injured and the elderly. We walked through Gamal Abdel Nasser Road to Bahr Street. The road was terrifying like we were in a Hollywood movie — the buildings around us were burnt and completely destroyed, the road was filled with rubble and water ponds, there were only stray dogs, until we reached the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah at eight in the morning,” Souany said.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Ardaee said that so far, “4,000 patients have been evacuated from the hospital and 40 suspects have been arrested.”

The raid, almost replicating the situation that played out in November at Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, comes as the Israeli military claims it has intelligence information which confirms that Hamas is holding Israeli prisoners in the hospital and that the bodies of dead prisoners are “possibly” held inside the hospital as well.

Ardaee claimed that the goal of the operation in the Nasser Medical Complex was to guarantee that it continues to offer medical services to patients and that civilians were asked to evacuate for their safety. 

Avichay added that medical equipment and fuel were delivered to Nasser Medical Complex, after coordination with international organizations to guarantee that operations inside the hospital could continue.

However, displaced people, patients and medical staff evacuating on Wednesday and Thursday from the invaded complex continue to describe a different narrative of destruction and humiliation.. 

Ambulance headquarters were targeted, as were tents used by the displaced seeking refuge in the complex, said Qidra. Mass graves inside the hospital were removed with Occupation bulldozers, Qidra continued.

The hospital's orthopedic department was targeted, he said, “leading to the death of one injured patient and injuring many others.” A journalist shared footage of the department filled with smoke and confusion as patient beds were moved in crowded corridors. 

Several people were injured during the evacuation, including Doctor Mohammed Abu Lehya and Palestinian journalist Saleh al-Jaafarawi, according to reports. Designated “safe corridors” used for evacuation during the 131 days of Israel’s aggression on Gaza have been subject to bombardment, shelling and sniper fire, the United Nations has said.

Souany also added that activist Abdallah Farahat, who documented the months of Occupation aggression on Gaza on social media platforms, was detained by the Occupation’s army on Thursday.

“People have been forced into an impossible situation: either stay at Nasser hospital against the Israeli military’s orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are a part of daily life,” said Doctors Without Borders Gaza Project Coordinator Lisa Macheiner in a statement condemning the evacuation orders. 

A video interview of one of the displaced to Al Jazeera on Wednesday evening illustrates how they were treated by the Occupation army.

“I told him [an Israeli soldier] that I cannot take it anymore and need to drink water, so he held the water bottle and started to pour it on the ground. He then told me, ‘let Hamas bring you water and feed you.’”

The raids deepened the state of fear and confusion experienced by the patients and those seeking refuge in the hospital have lived for over three weeks as Israeli forces have surrounded and besieged the facility.

Speaking to Mada Masr on Wednesday, Ahmed Smire, an anesthesiologist in the complex’s operations department, said that some of the displaced people are disabled and elderly and would require wheelchairs, therefore cannot exit via the designated evacuation path, adding that these people have stayed in the hospital on Wednesday, not knowing what to do.

Qidra said on Thursday that Occupation forces asked administrative staff at the Nasser Hospital to move patients, including intensive care and nursery patients to the old Nasser building without medical staff, including six people on mechanical ventilators. 

An oxygen pipe was damaged by the Israeli attacks causing it to leak, said Qidra, leading to a decrease in oxygen pressure in the hospital especially in the intensive care department, exposing patients to great danger.