Gaza's Nasser Hospital has been under siege in the past few days, allegedly prompting the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to issue an evacuation order as they were cut off by weeks of fighting.
However, during an operation on Thursday (Feb. 15) where Israeli troops stormed the compound, a patient of the hospital was killed and six others were injured.
The incident came as Israeli airstrikes also killed 13 other people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday (Feb. 14). Ten of those killed were mainly women and children, while the remaining three were militants of Iran-backed Hamas ally Hezbollah.
The strikes were in retaliation to a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed an Israeli soldier, making Wednesday the deadliest of deadly exchanges of fire along the Israeli-Lebanese border since the Oct. 7 attack while underscoring the risk of a broader conflict.
This also meant that the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas appeared to have stalled, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to continue the offensive until Hamas is destroyed and the hostages they took on Oct. 7 were returned.
Nasser Hospital Under Siege
According to the Associated Press (AP), Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis has been the latest focus of operations that have decimated Gaza's health sector as the number of casualties in the strip rises on a daily basis.
Israeli officials maintained that Hamas fighters were allegedly using hospitals and other civilian structures to shield its fighters after 20 of them were arrested by Israeli troops.
A video showed the aftermath of the Israeli strike, where it showed medics scrambling to evacuate patients on stretchers while a medic used a cellphone flashlight to illuminate a darkened room where a wounded man was screaming.
The video could not be authenticated but was consistent with the AP's report of the incident.
Dr. Khaled Alserr, one of the remaining surgeons at Nasser Hospital, said that the seven patients who were hit were already being treated for previous injuries.
"The situation is escalating every hour and every minute," he added.
Nowhere to Go
The IDF claimed on Wednesday that it had opened a secure corridor for displaced people to leave the hospital but would allow doctors and patients to remain there. Videos circulating online showed multiple people walking out of the facility on foot carrying their belongings on their shoulders.
Israeli military officials have ordered the evacuation of the hospital and its surrounding areas since last month. But as with other health facilities, medics said that patients were unable to safely leave Nasser Hospital or be relocated, and thousands of people displaced by the fighting elsewhere took refuge there. Palestinians said that nowhere is safe in the territory as Israel continued to carry out strikes in all parts of it.
"People have been forced into an impossible situation," Doctors Without Borders (MSF) official Lisa Macheiner said. "Stay at Nasser Hospital against the Israeli military's orders and become a potential target, or exit the compound into an apocalyptic landscape where bombings and evacuation orders are a part of daily life."
MSF has staff embedded in Nasser Hospital.
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