Gaza’s health ministry said on Friday that electric generators were cut and all power was lost at a major Gaza hospital that Israeli forces stormed a day earlier, killing three oxygen-dependent patients.
Gaza’s health ministry said in Facebook posts that the Israeli military was in control of the hospital, the Nasser Medical Complex, but did not say how or why the generators were stopped. The claims could not be independently verified. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Israeli army pushed into the Nasser compound in the southern city of Khan Younis in the early hours of Thursday, breaching the perimeter and entering the compound as explosions and gunfire rang out. The aid group Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday that its staff had to evacuate, but that the most vulnerable patients were left behind.
The Israeli military had ordered all remaining personnel and patients into a building, according to a voice memo from a doctor provided by the group.
Early Friday, Hamas’ health ministry said on its Facebook page that the hospital’s power supply had been cut, endangering the lives of six adult patients and three infants in intensive care who depend on oxygen. About 40 minutes later, he reported in another post that three of the patients had died.
The Israeli army’s evacuation orders ahead of the raid on the Nasser compound, which was the largest remaining functioning hospital in Gaza and sheltered thousands of civilians, sparked alarm from international observers.
“Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization. wrote to X earlier in the week. “It must be protected.”
The Israeli military announced late Thursday that it was continuing to search the hospital grounds. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said his forces had not located any hostages taken in the October 7 Hamas attack. The military said earlier that its raid on Nasser Hospital was based in part on information that prisoners were being held there and that their bodies might be on the hospital grounds.
Admiral Hagari also identified three people he said were located at Nasser Hospital linked to the October 7 attacks or an armed group, in an apparent attempt to bolster its justification for the raid.
One man was an ambulance driver who had taken hostages to Gaza as part of the Hamas attacks, and another admitted to taking part in the killings that day, Admiral Haggari said. A third man was a “well-known” member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, he said.
“We found more, dozens more,” he said, saying the military would provide additional details in the coming days.
Several were killed and injured, including at least one doctor and a patient in the Thursday morning raid. Videos showed chaotic scenes inside the hospital’s smoke-filled corridors, with parts of the ceiling collapsing and wires and beams jutting out as road workers rushed by.
