8 patients die at Gaza hospital amid Israeli raid: UN agency

By Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) – Eight patients died at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip amid an Israeli raid on the facility, the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) said Wednesday.

The Israeli army raided the medical facility last week after a weeks-long siege, forcing thousands of displaced Palestinians inside the hospital to flee under heavy Israeli bombardment.

In a statement, UNRWA said there are reportedly 10,000 people in the hospital, including 300 medical staff.

“No food, water [or] baby formula,” it said, adding that 70 medical staff have been detained at the hospital by Israeli forces.

On Tuesday, an official from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Nasser Hospital has become a “place of death.”

"The conditions are appalling. There are dead bodies in the corridors. Patients are in a desperate situation,” said Jonathan Whittall, senior humanitarian affairs officer at OCHA in the occupied Palestinian territory.

"This has become a place of death, not a place of healing," he added.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip following a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, killing 29,313 Palestinians and injuring more than 69,000 others with mass destruction and shortages of necessities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.