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Israeli forces have raided southern Gaza’s largest hospital, destroying part of the compound as they searched for hostages being held by Hamas.
The raid came a day after Israel ordered thousands of people sheltering in Nasser hospital — the last big medical facility functioning in the besieged strip — to evacuate from the compound in Khan Younis city.
Gaza’s health ministry told Al Jazeera that Israel had launched a “massive incursion” that wounded many of the displaced people who were still in the compound.
The ministry added that Israeli forces had ordered health workers to move patients to a different part of the hospital.
“Many cannot evacuate, such as those with lower limb amputations, severe burns, or the elderly,” it said.
The Israel Defense Forces said that it had “credible intelligence that Hamas held hostages” in the hospital and “appear to be operating from within the hospital, too”.
Hamas seized about 250 hostages during its October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and triggered the war. About 130 remain in the strip, although some are believed to have died.
During Israel’s retaliatory air, land and sea offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 28,000 people, according to Palestinian officials, Israeli forces have targeted numerous hospitals, accusing Hamas of using medical facilities for military purposes.
Nasser is the last remaining large hospital in the Gaza Strip after the IDF besieged, then raided al-Shifa hospital in central Gaza, underneath which the Israeli military said it found evidence of a tunnel complex used by Hamas militants.
Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement that Israeli forces destroyed the hospital’s southern wall, targeted a base for ambulances and bulldozed or dug up a mass grave in the compound.
The UN has repeatedly warned that the strip’s health system has been pushed into a state of collapse, with severe shortages of basic medical supplies and equipment. Medics have said they are being forced to carry out amputations without anaesthetic.
The World Health Organization estimated that only 11 hospitals are left partially functioning in Gaza, none of them as large as Nasser. About 22 have shut down, while three field hospitals in southern Gaza are operational.
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