2024-02-15 14:09:47
Members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered the facilities of the Naser Hospital in Khan Yunis this Thursday, in the south of the Gaza Strip, after several weeks of siege and despite warnings from staff working in the center and Human Rights organizations.
The IDF has confirmed the raid – “precise and limited” in the words of a spokesperson – and the arrest of several suspects, in a statement in which they alleged that they tried to evacuate the center to avoid collateral effects. Likewise, he has maintained that the troops have specific training for this type of operations and are ordered to prevent harm to civilians.
The Army, which claims to respect International Law, has justified this type of intervention given the will of the militiamen of Hamas to hide “systematically” in civilian buildings, such as hospitals and schools. A spokesperson explained that they have “credible” information about the alleged hiding of hostages inside the hospital, where the bodies of several people kidnapped in the attacks of October 7 could also be.
“We will pursue them no matter where they hide,” he warned, alleging that “more than 85 percent of Gaza’s medical facilities” are now at the service of Hamas for “terrorist operations.” In the case of the Naser Hospital, the spokesperson has indicated that the objective is for it to “continue with its important functions of treating Gazan patients.”
“We communicated this in several conversations with hospital staff in recent days, emphasizing that it is not mandatory for patients or workers to evacuate. However, we did ask other Gazans in Arabic, by phone and through loudspeakers, to escape. of the dangerous situation in which Hamas had put them,” he added.
Israeli authorities have claimed that they had established a safe corridor to evacuate civilians from Naser Hospital, something the director general of the hospital denied on Wednesday. World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who sounded the “alarm” about the imminent incursion.
The Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, linked to Hamas, had also denounced a “catastrophic situation” inside the facilities after more than three weeks of military siege.
MSF leaves the center
For its part, the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), present at the hospital, has denounced a “chaotic situation”, to the point that one of its workers is missing and another has been detained at checkpoints established by the Israeli Army in the vicinity.
The organization has accused the Israeli authorities of breaking their promises, to bomb the center at dawn despite the fact that they had promised patients and doctors that they could stay inside and not evacuate. In this sense, he confirmed that MSF staff have also been forced to leave.
MSF has called for “an immediate end to this attack” as it “endangers medical staff and patients who remain trapped inside the facilities.”
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