GAZA: Israeli forces said on Thursday they had raided the biggest functioning hospital in Gaza as footage showed chaos, shouting and gunfire in dark corridors filled with dust and smoke.
Israel's military called the raid on Nasser Hospital "precise and limited" and said it was based on information that Palestinians were hiding and had kept captives in the facility.
Health authorities in the enclave said Israel had forced out displaced people and families of medical staff sheltering in Nasser Hospital. Some 2,000 Palestinians arrived in the southern border city of Rafah overnight while others pushed north to Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, they said.
Israel's air and ground offensive has devastated tiny, crowded Gaza, killing 28,663 people, according to health authorities, and forcing nearly all its more than 2 million inhabitants from their homes.
The medical charity Medicins San Frontieres said Israel shelled the hospital in the early hours, despite having told medical staff and patients they could remain.
"Our medical staff have had to flee the hospital, leaving patients behind," it said on social media platform X, adding a member of its staff was detained at an Israeli checkpoint set up to screen those leaving the compound.
Fighting at the hospital comes as Israel faces growing international pressure to show restraint, after vowing to press its offensive into Rafah, the last relatively safe place in Gaza.
Attacks that have destroyed the majority of Gaza's medical facilities have caused particular concern, including Israeli raids on hospitals in other cities, shelling in the vicinity of hospitals and the targeting of ambulances.
As massive bombardment destroyed swathes of residential districts and forced most people from their homes, hospitals quickly became the focus for displaced people seeking shelter around buildings they thought more likely to be safe.
Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al Qidra said Israel had forced doctors at Nasser Hospital to abandon patients in intensive care.
Videos on Thursday as having been filmed inside Nasser Hospital - though it could not check when - showed chaos and terror.
Men walked through corridors using phone lights, with plaster dust swirling around and debris lying about, at one point wheeling a bed through a damaged area.
In one video, gunshots rang out and a doctor shouted: "Is there anyone still inside? There is gunfire, there is gunfire - heads down."
Another man in a video said the Israeli army had surrounded the hospital and nobody could get out.
The World Health Organization has previously said half the Nasser medical staff had already fled. — Reuters
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