Medics warn of danger, desperation at key Gaza hospital

Kyiv – Medics are sounding the alarm at southern Gaza’s Nasser hospital, where a nurse said snipers are killing people, sewage has flooded the emergency room and drinking water has run out.

“It was a black night, with strikes and explosions all night,” Mohammed al-Astal, a nurse in the emergency department, told AFP on Wednesday.

Fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants has taken place all around Nasser hospital in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis.

Astal said the facility has been “besieged” for a month, with constant danger and no food or drinking water left.

“At night, tanks opened heavy fire on the hospital and snipers on the roofs of buildings surrounding Nasser hospital opened fire and killed three displaced people,” the 39-year-old nurse said.

He said dozens of young men and some women were detained in Tuesday by Israeli troops, who also “forced the displaced people to leave under gunfire”.

Gaza’s health ministry reported that  thousands of people, including patients, have been made to leave the hospital.

Israel’s military said soldiers “opened a secure route to evacuate the civilian population taking shelter in the area of the Nasser hospital”, without commenting on the allegations of sniper fire.

In a statement, the military said it “does not intend to evacuate patients and medical staff” and troops have been “thoroughly instructed” to protect civilians and medical facilities.

Israeli forces operating across the Gaza Strip have repeatedly raided hospitals, which are granted special protection under the laws of war.

– ‘Critically important’ hospital –

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday he was “alarmed” by reports from Nasser hospital, which he described as the “backbone of the health system in southern Gaza”.

The agency has been denied access to the hospital in recent days and has lost contact with staff there, the WHO chief wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

There have also been reports that the fighting in the area has destroyed warehouses filled with medical supplies, which the WHO said served hospitals in central and southern Gaza.

The agency’s envoy for the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, described Nasser as “a key hospital for all of Gaza”.

“We cannot lose that hospital… this hospital is critically important,” Peeperkorn told journalists.

The United Nations said a week ago there are no fully functioning hospitals left in Gaza, with only 13 out of 36 across the territory working at some capacity.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed by more than four months of war, during which more than 68,200 people have been wounded according to the latest Gaza health ministry toll. 

The ministry says at least 28,576 people, mostly women and children, have been killed during Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territory since October 7.

The Hamas attack that launched the war resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Gaza’s health ministry warned on Tuesday that the situation at Nasser was “catastrophic”, with staff unable to move bodies to the mortuary because of the risks involved.

“Healthcare workers, patients and companions in the complex are in grave danger,” the ministry said, and reported that multiple people had been shot.

Despite the persistent peril, nurse Astal said he did not want to leave the hospital.

“We serve the wounded and the sick, this is my duty — and I won’t give up even if they kill us.”