Shots rang out around doctors, patients and Palestinian refugees during what they described as a terrifying and chaotic nighttime exit from Gaza's Nasser Hospital following an invasion by Israeli forces.
Survivors of last week's attack on Gaza's second largest hospital said they then had to endure a treacherous walk to safety in the dark, passing dead bodies along the way.
A doctor reported that a nurse was detained, stripped naked and taken screaming through an Israeli checkpoint.
“There was smoke everywhere, it looked like doomsday, people running everywhere,” said doctor Ahmed al-Mughraby, head of the plastic surgery department, who fled with his wife and children.
Mughraby, who found refuge for his family in a shelter near another hospital where he now works, said Israeli forces ordered everyone to evacuate except patients who were unable to walk and the doctors caring for them.
Details of the military attack on Nasser Hospital are gradually emerging as people who have fled or been evacuated arrive in Rafah, the last relatively safe location in the Gaza Strip, about 10 km from the border with Egypt.
Israel described the attack as a precision operation conducted by special forces aimed at recovering bodies of Israeli hostages. It stated that it did not force patients and staff to leave and that efforts were made to ensure that the hospital continued to operate.
But the invasion raised alarm among aid agencies, and the World Health Organization said the extent of the damage was “indescribable.”
The WHO, the UN health agency, has carried out two evacuation operations from Nasser Hospital since Thursday, but said, this Tuesday (19), that it is concerned about around 150 patients and doctors who remained at the site, where the fighting continues.
After surrounding the hospital, Israeli forces entered the facility last Thursday and said they had arrested hundreds of militants who were hiding there, some pretending to be hospital employees.
Hamas has denied using the hospital and says Israel's accusations are “lies.” Gaza's Health Ministry said Israel detained 70 staff and volunteers working there.
The WHO said the hospital stopped functioning last week following the Israeli siege and attack and no longer has electricity or running water, with medical waste and rubbish creating a breeding ground for disease.
Drones and aggressive dogs
Nasser Hospital was the largest hospital still operating in Gaza after more than four months of war, which began when fighters from the Palestinian militant group Hamas invaded Israeli cities on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli records. .
Since then, the Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Hakeem Salem Hussein Baraka said the orthopedics department at Nasser Hospital, where he worked as a volunteer, was destroyed and that he saw a patient cut in two by an explosion.
Baraka said a “quadcopter” drone fired at medical staff taking a break between shifts and that “aggressive” dogs, with cameras attached to their necks by the Israeli military, roamed the hospital.
The Israeli army said its forces fought “complex battles” before entering the hospital complex and were attacked by rockets fired by fighters barricaded inside the hospital. It also said soldiers found large quantities of weapons and vehicles linked to the October 7 attack.
“We gave people the opportunity to leave before we entered the hospital,” Colonel Moshe Tetro said at a news conference. Asked if there was a shooting or fighting inside the hospital, he said: “No.”
When Palestinians left the hospital before dawn, some had to cross sewers, said Rasmeya Saleem Abu Jamoos, a dialysis patient who fled with her blind husband, Abu Jamoos.
He was among people detained at a military checkpoint after leaving the hospital, she said.
The doctor, Mughraby, said his ward had been hit by Israeli fire and that he believed three patients had been killed in the attack. Reuters was unable to verify the report.
He said he left the hospital with his family, three patients and some staff members, but one of them, a nurse from the department, was prevented from leaving.
“They forced him to take off all his clothes, so he was naked, and they took him to detention. I could hear his screams,” he said.
Mughraby said those who managed to get through the checkpoint had to make a long walk across a battlefield to get help. Some were sick or injured.
Baraa Ahmed Abu Mustafa, who was using disparate crutches, said that shots were fired over their heads as they walked and that there were dead bodies near the hospital entrance.
Source: CNN Brasil
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