Israeli forces raided Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Thursday. The Israel Defense Forces said it was conducting an operation to recover the bodies of hostages, while the Gaza Health Ministry accused the IDF of storming the complex “after demolishing the southern wall,” and turning it into a military base.
One patient was killed and others were injured when Israeli forces targeted a building within the hospital, the Health Ministry said early Thursday.
“I hear the sound of gunfire, but I don’t know where,” Hazem Bahloul, a physician at Nasser Hospital, told The Post. “Apparently, the Israeli army is conducting searches in all other buildings.”
Bahloul said the Israeli military instructed all staff and patients to relocate to one of the hospital’s three buildings. He said he relocated to the old internal medicine department building, accompanied by approximately 50 other medical staffers and 100 patients, while ensuring that intensive care patients remained in the other building accompanied by one nurse.
He added that food and water supplies promised by the Israeli army had not yet been delivered. “I do not know what will happen or where we will end up,” he said.
Mohammad Harara, an emergency doctor at Nasser Hospital, uploaded a video Thursday that appeared to show part of the hospital in darkness, engulfed by thick dust and some rubble, while gunfire can be heard in the background. “We are attacked by the Israeli army at the hospital,” Harara says in the video. “Is there anyone still inside? There is gunfire! There is gunfire! Heads down!”
Harara, who has previously spoken to The Post about conditions at Nasser Hospital, was completing his residency in al-Shifa Hospital when the war began, before he was forced to move to southern Gaza.
The IDF said Thursday that it was carrying out a “precise and limited operation inside Nasser Hospital.” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, said the mission was based on “credible intelligence,” including from released hostages, that Hamas held hostages at the Nasser Hospital and “there may be bodies of our hostages in the Nasser Hospital facility.”
He said the operation would ensure that the hospital “continues its important function of treating Gazan patients,” adding that “there is no obligation for patients or staff to evacuate the hospital.” He said medical supplies and equipment have been transferred in coordination with international organizations.
In a later briefing, Hagari said that some of those involved in the Oct. 7 attack in Israel were found inside the Nasser complex.
Doctors Without Borders, which has medical staff in the hospital, said some of its workers had to flee the facility, leaving patients behind. One was detained at a checkpoint while leaving the compound, the group said on social media, calling for his safety.
In a statement, U.N. Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani expressed concern over the raid, which she said came after a week-long siege that cut off medical, food and fuel supplies. She also criticized the movement of patients to different buildings, which she said exposes them to “grave risks.”
“The raid appears to be part of a pattern of attacks by Israeli forces striking essential life-saving civilian infrastructure in Gaza, especially hospitals,” she said, adding that the office has documented similar raids across the Strip that have “serious consequences for the safety” of patients, staff and civilians taking shelter.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also called out the raid on social media, saying that two WHO missions had been denied in the past four days and that the organization had lost touch with the hospital’s staff.
“Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza,” he said. “It must be protected.”
A day earlier, the Israeli military, using loudspeakers, instructed displaced people sheltering in the hospital complex to evacuate the premises and relocate to a designated area within the city.
The Israeli army began to surround the hospital last month. The IDF alleged in late January that Hamas militants were operating “inside and around” the hospital. International doctors volunteering there said they had seen no sign of militant activity on the premises.
Frances Vinall contributed to this report.