One hundred people were arrested in one of the main hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army announced on Saturday, which stormed this establishment where fears are intensifying for the dozens of trapped patients and employees. During the night, new bombings by the Israeli army on Palestinian territory left around a hundred dead, according to Hamas. At least 120 patients and five medical teams are deprived of water, food and electricity at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, the main city in the south of the Gaza Strip, he added.
Israel has for weeks concentrated its military operations in Khan Younes, hometown of Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahia Sinouar, alleged mastermind of the unprecedented attack on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil, which sparked the war.
“Newborns risk dying in the coming hours”
Six patients, including a child, have died at the Nasser hospital since Friday due to power cuts which caused the cessation of the distribution of oxygen, according to a new report on Saturday from Hamas in power in Gaza. “Newborns are at risk of dying in the coming hours,” he added. The Israeli army said its troops entered the hospital on Thursday based on “credible intelligence” that those taken hostage in the October 7 attack were being held there and that the bodies of some of them were perhaps still there.
One hundred people arrested in the hospital are suspected of “terrorist activities”, the army said on Saturday. She said she discovered mortar shells, grenades and other weapons belonging to Hamas. On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza killed more than 1,160 people in Israel, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization, as well as the United States and the European Union, in retaliation. The Israeli offensive in Gaza killed 28,858 people, the vast majority of them civilians, Hamas announced on Saturday in a new report. According to Israel, 130 hostages are still held in Gaza, 30 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on its territory on October 7.
“The situation was chaotic, catastrophic”
Doctors from the Nasser hospital described an untenable situation in this establishment located in a city transformed into a field of ruins, prey to fighting and where thousands of displaced people had taken refuge. Doctors Without Borders announced that its employees had “had to flee, leaving the sick behind.” “The situation was chaotic, catastrophic,” Christopher Lockyear, MSF secretary general, told AFP.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Nasser hospital, one of eleven that remain open out of the 36 in the Gaza Strip before the war, is now “barely functional”. “More damage to hospitals means more lives lost,” declared WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic during a press briefing on Friday in Geneva, demanding urgent access to WHO at the hospital complex.
Meanwhile, the international community is increasing its calls to dissuade Israel from launching an offensive in the overcrowded city of Rafah, where nearly a million and a half civilians are trapped against the closed border with Egypt. The European Union said on Friday it was “very concerned” by this prospect, and urged Israel “not to undertake military action in Rafah which would aggravate an already catastrophic humanitarian situation”.
Joe Biden calls for a “temporary ceasefire”
Witnesses reported explosions in central and eastern Rafah on Saturday where at least two houses were targeted by airstrikes. The day after US President Joe Biden called for a “temporary ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip. The leader of Palestinian Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, repeated on Saturday that his movement demanded a cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing Egyptian officials, Egypt is building a safe zone surrounded by a wall in the Sinai Peninsula to accommodate Palestinians from Gaza. This camp is part of the “emergency plans” for the reception of these refugees in the event of an Israeli assault on Rafah and could shelter “more than 100,000 people”, according to the American daily. Palestinian leaders, the UN and many countries have expressed alarm at the catastrophic consequences for the population of such an offensive and denounce the creation of a new generation of refugees with no prospect of return.
On Saturday, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of leading a “concerted campaign” aimed at “destroying” this institution. Israel recently called on Mr. Lazzarini to resign after he claimed that one of the tunnels used by Hamas had been discovered beneath the agency’s headquarters in Gaza.