The fate of a large hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip aroused growing concerns on Friday, after an operation by the Israeli army which took control of it, and the death, according to Hamas, of several patients from lack of oxygen .
Meanwhile, the international community is increasing its calls to dissuade Israel from launching an offensive in the overcrowded city of Rafah, where nearly a million and a half civilians are trapped against the closed border with Egypt.
A few kilometers further north, fighting between the army and the Palestinian Islamist movement is raging in the town of Khan Younes, transformed into a field of ruins.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, Israeli soldiers took control of the Nasser hospital, the largest in southern Gaza, where five patients died following power cuts following the fuel shortage. , which caused the oxygen distribution to stop after this assault.
The ministry added that it feared for the lives of seven other patients in intensive care and the nursery, and held Israeli forces “responsible” for the deaths.
Dozens of arrests
On Thursday, the Hamas health ministry said several hundred patients, medical staff and other civilians were still inside the compound.
The army then announced that it had carried out an operation in the hospital after having received “credible information” according to which Hamas had held hostages there and “there might be bodies of hostages” on site.
She said on Friday that she had arrested “more than 20 terrorists who participated” in the unprecedented Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, among “dozens of suspects” arrested.
The army added that it had found in the vicinity of the complex “remains of mortar shells, grenades and other weapons belonging” to Hamas, which it said had used the hospital to fire on Israeli forces in recent weeks. .
A witness speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that the soldiers opened fire on “anyone who moved inside the hospital”.
Doctors have described in recent days an untenable situation in this hospital surrounded by fighting, where thousands of displaced people had taken refuge before starting to flee.
Doctors Without Borders announced that its employees had “had to flee, leaving the sick behind.”
The Nasser Hospital is “the backbone” of the health system in southern Gaza and “must remain operational”, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, recalling that only a few hospitals in the territory continue to operate partially.
112 deaths in 24 hours
On Friday, witnesses reported fighting in Khan Yunis, northeastern Rafah, as well as eastern Gaza City in the north.
The war was triggered by the attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a count by the AFP produced from official Israeli data.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, in retaliation, which it considers a terrorist organization, like the United States, Canada and the European Union. The Israeli offensive in Gaza has left 28,775 dead, the vast majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, which reported 112 deaths in 24 hours on Friday.
In a context of tensions in Israel and the Palestinian territories, an attack described as “terrorist” by the police left at least two dead on Friday in a small bus station in Kiryat Malakhi, a town in southern Israel, where a man opened fire.
“We are dying slowly”
The Israeli army is meanwhile preparing for an offensive on Rafah, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to destroy the “last bastion” of Hamas. He assured that the army would previously allow civilians “to leave combat zones”, without explaining to which destination.
This city, transformed into a gigantic encampment, shelters, according to the UN, 1.4 million Palestinians, most of them displaced by the war.
Rafah is also the main entry point, from Egypt, for humanitarian aid, controlled by Israel and insufficient to meet the needs of a population threatened by famine and epidemics.
“They are slowly killing us,” testified a refugee in Rafah, Mohammad Yaghi. “We are slowly dying because of shortages and lack of medicines. »
“Everyone is sick, children and the elderly, and there are no medicines, no antibiotics or other treatments,” a woman, Jihan al-Quqa, also told AFP. who fled Khan Younes.
Safe zone in Egypt?
An offensive in Rafah would lead to an “unprecedented humanitarian disaster” and a “turning point in the conflict,” French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Friday.
The American President, Joe Biden, had reiterated the day before, during a telephone conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu, his opposition to such an operation “without a credible and achievable plan ensuring the safety of civilians”.
Complex negotiations for a truce including further releases of hostages continue in Cairo through the mediating countries Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, including 30 who are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on its territory on October 7. A week-long truce in November allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinians held by Israel.
According to Wall Street Journalciting Egyptian officials, Egypt is building a walled safe zone in the Sinai to accommodate Palestinians from Gaza.
We must “avoid at all costs” that Gaza residents flee to Egypt, because this would sign the “death warrant” of a peace process, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees told the BBC on Friday , Filippo Grandi.