Hundreds of displaced Palestinians were leaving a major hospital in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, according to doctors and video footage from the scene, after Israeli forces ordered them to leave and threatened military action to stop Hamas activity at the hospital.
Thousands of Gazans have been taking refuge at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis for weeks, forced from their homes and other parts of Gaza by Israel’s intense shelling of the ground and military orders to leave their towns and cities. Hospitals have become shelters during the war, even though they have often been the focus of Israel’s military attack.
Inside Nasser, which is one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza, there was fear that Israeli forces would bomb or storm the compound, said Mohammed Abu Lehya, a doctor there. Previous Israeli warnings to evacuate hospitals, including Al-Shifa, the largest in Gaza, often preceded military raids on the facilities.
“The situation is very difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult,” Dr Abu Lehya said in a WhatsApp message on Wednesday morning. “It is beyond imagination or description.”
A video shared on social media on Wednesday and verified by The New York Times shows crowds of people carrying belongings and bedding leaving the hospital as explosions can be heard in the background. The Israeli military called on those in shelters to leave, but said it did not call on patients and medical staff to leave the hospital.
Israel accuses Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that ruled Gaza, of using hospitals for its military operations. Hamas and hospital administrators have previously denied such claims. Classified Israeli intelligence obtained and reviewed by The Times suggests that Hamas operated under Al-Shifa, but cannot substantiate Israel’s early claims that there was a command center there.
Doctors at the hospital and Gaza’s health ministry said some people who tried to flee the Nasser Medical Complex on Tuesday were shot by Israeli soldiers, killing some and injuring others.
In response to questions, the Israeli army said it had “opened a safe route to evacuate the civilian population sheltering in the area of ​​Nasser Hospital to the humanitarian zone.” He did not respond to questions about reports that he fired on Palestinians trying to leave the hospital.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Israeli military accused Hamas of conducting military activity inside the hospital and said it was “used to hold hostages.” The claims could not be independently verified, but signaled an intensification of the Israeli military’s focus on the hospital, which its forces have surrounded for weeks.
“We demand the immediate cessation of all military activity in the area of ​​the hospital and the immediate withdrawal of the military from it,” the Israeli military said. He called on civilians housed in the hospital to leave for “safer areas” in southern and central Gaza.
It was unclear where those who fled the compound could find safety, as the Israeli military has frequently shelled areas of Gaza it had previously declared safe. Israeli leaders have also vowed to invade Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which is home to more than a million people.
Inside the hospital, some medical staff were packing their belongings and preparing their families to flee.
“We are all scared,” said Dr. Mohammad Abu Musa, a radiologist at Nasser. He added that although he was worried about an attack on the hospital, he and his wife had made the difficult decision to stay for now. They and their two surviving children – a third was killed in an airstrike in October – have been in hospital for weeks.
“I have no choice,” said Dr. Abu Musa. “I have nowhere to go in Rafa and I have small children and they can’t walk long distances like this.”
Hanin Abu Tiba, 27, an English teacher housed at the hospital, described dire conditions inside, with food running out and aid convoys unable to deliver supplies. In text messages overnight, he said he had seen an Israeli military vehicle outside the hospital gate.
“I’m terrified of leaving the hospital and being shot,” he said. But inside the compound, he said, “electricity is cut and water and canned food are almost gone. We don’t know what to do.”
During the four-month war, the Israeli army raided other Gaza hospitals, detaining medical staff, according to the health ministry.
“We are very concerned about the situation developing at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis,” the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders he said on social media on Wednesday. He called on Israeli forces to “ensure the safety of all medical personnel, patients and displaced persons.”
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Aaron Boxerman contributed to the report.
