Fighting leaves patients stranded in Gaza hospital
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces battled Palestinian militants Wednesday near the main hospital in Gaza’s second-largest city, where medics said hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people were trapped by the fighting.
Israel has ordered residents to leave a swath of downtown Khan Younis that includes Nasser Hospital and two smaller medical facilities as the country pushes ahead with its 3-month-old offensive against Hamas. The United Nations humanitarian office said the area was home to 88,000 Palestinians and was hosting another 425,000 displaced by fighting elsewhere.
But the aid group Doctors Without Borders said fleeing was not an option for many. It said its staff was trapped inside Nasser with some 850 patients and thousands of displaced people because the surrounding roads were inaccessible or too dangerous. The hospital is one of only two in southern Gaza that can still treat critically ill patients, the group said. Gaza’s Health Ministry also said the facility had been isolated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the offensive until “complete victory” against Hamas, which started the war with its Oct. 7 assault across the border, killing some 1,200 people in Israel and abducting another 250.
The Israeli military said its forces were battling militants inside Khan Younis after encircling it a day earlier. Military officials said aircraft were striking targets as part of the operations there and had also targeted suspected militants in central and northern Gaza.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said nine people were killed when a U.N. training center in Khan Younis where 800 people were sheltering was struck by tank rounds, according to the agency’s Gaza director, Thomas White. The number of deaths was likely to climb, Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the agency known as UNRWA, wrote on social media.
The agency said the same site was also hit earlier this week, killing six. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. Israel says Hamas militants operate in the area of U.N. facilities, as well as in other civilian structures.
Thousands of people fled south Tuesday from Khan Younis toward the town of Rafah. The U.N. says some 1.5 million people — around two-thirds of Gaza’s population — are crowded into shelters and tent camps in and around Rafah, which is on the border with Egypt.