Witness recalls horror of harrowing incident at Gaza hospital

By Zeynep Tufekci Gulay and Safiye Karabacak

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - A witness recalled the horror inside Nasser Hospital in Gaza City, where Israeli army troops left babies to die and decay.

The Israeli army besieged the Nasser and the al-Rantisi Children hospitals in western Gaza City on Nov. 10 and forced the medical staff to leave the buildings.

Shocking images of the horrors that occurred in the premature baby ward were revealed after the withdrawal of the army from the Nasser neighborhood.

It was confirmed later that babies died in their hospital beds after soldiers withdrew.

Palestinian pediatrician Muna Sahvil, who was the last person to leave the hospital after it was raided by Israeli forces, said soldiers forced health teams to leave the hospital on the grounds that babies would be evacuated by an international team.

"We were prepared to leave with babies connected to ventilators, but the soldiers entered the hospital and demanded that we leave them behind,” she said.

Sahvil said communication with the hospital was later cut and the staff had to disperse to other hospitals.

The doctor said teams became aware of the tragic event weeks later through images that were circulated on the media.

"We couldn't believe our eyes when we saw that the Israeli army had abandoned babies to die in their beds and sentenced their bodies to decay,” she noted. "They neither allowed anyone to rescue the babies nor did they evacuate them.”

Five infants died after soldiers forced medical staff to evacuate the hospital and did not allow sick babies to leave, spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qudra, said last month.

Al-Qudra said teams found decayed bodies of abandoned babies in the hospital after the Israeli army's withdrawal.

Israel has waged a retaliatory offensive on Gaza since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 that killed less than 1,200 people.

The offensive has killed more than 30,800 victims and injured nearly 73,000 in Gaza amid mass destruction and acute shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Palestinian enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced by the Israeli onslaught 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 is 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.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz.