By WAFAA SHURAFA, BASSEM MROUE and MELANIE LIDMAN (Associated Press)
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces stormed the primary hospital in southern Gaza on Thursday, hours after Israeli hearth killed a affected person and wounded six others contained in the advanced. The Israeli military mentioned it was searching for the stays of hostages taken by Hamas.
The raid on Nasser Hospital got here after troops had besieged the ability for practically per week, with lots of of workers, sufferers and others inside struggling below heavy hearth and dwindling provides, together with meals and water. A day earlier, the military ordered hundreds of displaced individuals who had taken shelter there to depart the hospital within the metropolis of Khan Younis, the main target of Israel’s offensive towards Hamas in latest weeks.
The conflict exhibits no signal of ending, and the danger of a broader battle grew as Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group stepped up assaults after a very lethal change on Wednesday.
The navy mentioned it had “credible intelligence” that Hamas had held hostages at Nasser Hospital and that the hostages’ stays would possibly nonetheless be inside. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief navy spokesperson, mentioned forces have been conducting a “precise and limited” operation there and wouldn’t forcibly evacuate medics or sufferers. Israel accuses Hamas of utilizing hospitals and different civilian constructions to defend its fighters.
A launched hostage instructed The Associated Press final month that she and over two dozen different captives had been held in Nasser Hospital. International regulation prohibits the focusing on of medical services; they will lose these protections if they’re used for navy functions, although operations towards them nonetheless should be proportional to any menace.
As troops searched hospital buildings, they ordered the greater than 460 workers, sufferers and their kinfolk to maneuver into an older constructing within the compound that isn’t outfitted to deal with sufferers, the Gaza Health Ministry mentioned. They have been “in harsh conditions with no food or baby formula” and extreme water shortages, it mentioned.
Six sufferers have been left in intensive care, together with three infants in incubators with no workers to take care of them. The ministry mentioned gas for mills would quickly run out, endangering their lives.
Separately, Israel launched airstrikes into southern Lebanon for a second day after killing 10 civilians and three Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday in response to a rocket assault that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded a number of others.
It was the deadliest change of fireside alongside the border because the begin of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Israel and Hezbollah — an ally of Hamas — have traded hearth day by day, elevating the dangers of a broader battle.
Hezbollah has not claimed accountability for Wednesday’s rocket assault. Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, a senior member of the group, mentioned it’s “prepared for the possibility of expanding the war” and would meet “escalation with escalation, displacement with displacement, and destruction with destruction.”
Negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza, in the meantime, seem to have stalled, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to proceed the offensive and increase it to the Gaza metropolis of Rafah, close to Egypt, till Hamas is destroyed and scores of hostages taken throughout the militants’ Oct. 7 assault are freed.
In a cellphone name Thursday, President Joe Biden once more cautioned Netanyahu towards shifting ahead with a navy operation in Rafah earlier than developing with a “credible and executable plan” to make sure the protection of Palestinian civilians, the White House mentioned Thursday,
Nasser Hospital has been the most recent focus of Israeli navy operations which have gutted Gaza’s well being sector because it struggles to deal with a relentless stream of individuals wounded in day by day bombardments.
Israeli troops, tanks and snipers have surrounded the hospital for at the least per week, and hearth from exterior has lately killed a number of folks inside, in response to well being officers.
“There’s no water, no food. Garbage is everywhere. Sewage has flooded the emergency ward,” mentioned Raed Abed, a wounded affected person who was amongst those that left Nasser Hospital on Israeli orders Wednesday.
Still affected by a extreme abdomen wound, Abed mentioned he initially collapsed as he received out of his hospital mattress and tried to depart. He then waited exterior for hours as troops made these leaving go by 5 at a time, arresting some and making them strip to their underwear, he mentioned. Finally, he walked for miles till he reached the border city of Rafah, the place he was put in a hospital. Lying in a mattress there, he wheezed in ache from his wound as he spoke.
Overnight, a strike slammed into considered one of Nasser Hospital’s wards, killing one affected person and wounding six others, Dr. Khaled Alserr, one of many remaining surgeons there, instructed the AP.
Video confirmed medics scrambling to maneuver sufferers down a hall crammed with smoke or mud, whereas in a darkish room a wounded man screamed in ache as gunfire echoed exterior.
“The situation is escalating every hour and every minute,” Alserr mentioned.
The worldwide support group Doctors Without Borders mentioned its workers needed to flee the hospital Thursday, leaving sufferers behind, and that one staffer was detained at an Israeli checkpoint.
Troops have been nonetheless looking out the hospital hours after the entered, navy spokesman Hagari mentioned. He mentioned dozens of militants have been arrested from the hospital grounds, together with three who participated within the Oct. 7 assault. He additionally mentioned troops discovered grenades and mortar shells, and that Israeli radar decided that militants fired mortars from the hospital grounds a month in the past.
The conflict started when Hamas militants on Oct. 7 burst out of Gaza and attacked a number of Israeli communities, killing some 1,200 folks and taking one other 250 hostage. More than 100 captives have been freed throughout a cease-fire in November in change for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Around 130 hostages stay in Gaza, a fourth of whom are believed to be lifeless. Netanyahu has come below intense strain from hostages’ households and the broader public to make a deal to safe their freedom, however his far-right coalition companions may carry down his authorities if he’s seen as being too smooth on Hamas. Dozens of hostages’ kinfolk protested and blocked visitors Thursday exterior the navy’s headquarters, the place the War Cabinet additionally meets.
Israel responded to the Hamas assault with one of many deadliest and most damaging navy campaigns in latest historical past.
At least 28,663 Palestinians have been killed, principally girls and kids, and greater than 68,000 wounded, in response to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. Some 80% of the inhabitants has been pushed from their houses, and 1 / 4 are ravenous amid a worsening humanitarian disaster. Large areas in northern Gaza, the primary goal of the offensive, have been utterly destroyed.
Israeli media reported that CIA Director William Burns flew to Israel to fulfill with Netanyahu to debate efforts for a cease-fire.
Hamas says it won’t launch all of the remaining captives till Israel ends its offensive, withdraws and frees Palestinian prisoners, together with prime militants.
Netanyahu has rejected these calls for and says Israel will quickly increase its offensive into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost metropolis. Over half of Gaza’s inhabitants of two.3 million has sought refuge in Rafah after fleeing combating elsewhere.
Airstrikes late Wednesday in central Gaza killed at the least 11 folks, together with 4 kids and 5 girls, in response to hospital data. Relatives gathered round our bodies wrapped in white shrouds exterior Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital within the central city of Deir al-Balah earlier than the stays have been positioned in a truck to be taken for burial.
One man struggled to let go, mendacity down and holding one of many our bodies on the truck as he wept.
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Mroue reported from Beirut and Lidman from Jerusalem. Associated Press author Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
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Find extra of AP’s protection at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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