Gaza:
Fighting, fuel shortages and Israeli raids left the Gaza Strip's second-largest hospital completely out of service on Sunday, local and UN health officials said, as Israeli forces battled Hamas in the devastated Palestinian enclave.
The latest blow to Gaza's devastated healthcare sector came as Israel prepared to attack the southernmost city of Rafah, now home to more than a million largely displaced Palestinians living in desperate conditions.
The Israeli air and ground offensive has destroyed much of Gaza and driven almost all residents from their homes. According to Palestinian health authorities, 28,985 people, mostly civilians, have been killed.
Gaza's hospitals have been a flashpoint in the four-month war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.
The Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis fell out of action early on Sunday, said Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for Gaza's health ministry.
The Israeli military said in a statement that hundreds of officers were hiding in Nasser's hospital and that some had posed as medical staff. It released images of weapons it said had been found, along with medicine brought from Israel and intended for the more than 100 hostages kidnapped from Israel and held by Hamas.
“The medicine packages found were sealed and not handed over to the hostages,” the military said.
Hamas rejects the Israeli accusations, saying they serve as a pretext to destroy the health care system.
The hospital continued to house dozens of patients suffering from war wounds and Gaza's worsening health crisis, but there was no power and not enough staff to treat them all, health officials said.
“It has been completely decommissioned. There are currently only four medical teams – 25 staff – caring for patients within the facility,” he said.
The military said the raid took place “without harming patients and medical personnel, and in accordance with the values of the IDF and international law.”
Qidra said water supply to the hospital had been stopped because generators had been out of action for three days, sewerage was flooding the emergency room and remaining staff had no ability to treat patients in intensive care.
A lack of oxygen supplies – also a result of the lack of power – had caused the deaths of at least seven patients, he said.
The Gaza war began when Hamas, which controls Gaza, sent fighters into Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
The conflict has destabilized the entire Middle East as Hamas's military allies – all Iranian-backed paramilitary groups – have targeted Israeli and American interests with missiles and drones.
Most hospitals in Gaza have been put out of action due to fighting and lack of fuel, leaving a population of 2.3 million without adequate health care.
Israel has raided medical facilities and claims Hamas is keeping weapons and hostages in hospitals. Hamas operates in densely populated Gaza but denies using hospitals as cover.
The international community says hospitals must be protected in accordance with international law.
The World Health Organization urged Israel to allow its staff access to the hospital, where it said a week-long siege and raids by Israeli forces searching for Hamas had prevented them from helping patients.
“Both yesterday and the day before yesterday, the @WHO team was not allowed to enter the hospital to assess patients' conditions and critical medical needs, despite reaching the hospital complex to deliver fuel,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
The Israeli army said its special forces were operating in and around Nasser Hospital and had killed dozens of Palestinian militants and seized a large quantity of weapons during fighting in Gaza over the past day.
The army said this week it was hunting militants in Nasser and had arrested at least 100 suspects on the spot, killing armed men near the hospital and finding weapons inside.
Strikes kill displaced people in Rafah
The Israeli assault on Gaza started in the north and has moved south as Palestinians have fled. Many are crammed into tents around southern towns, including Khan Younis and Rafah, the Gaza-Egypt border town that is the only border crossing not controlled by Israel.
More than half of Gaza's population has entered Rafah and Israeli plans to storm the city have raised international concern, including the United States, Israel's main ally and arms supplier.
Israeli aircraft carried out attacks on two areas in Rafah on Sunday, including a vacant building near the border with Egypt, local residents and Hamas media officials said.
The second of the two attacks hit an open space where displaced people were sheltering, killing six people, local medics said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, conflicted at home over the government's failure to stop the Oct. 7 attack and under pressure to free the remaining hostages, vowed Saturday to continue the military campaign.
Netanyahu has rejected internationally backed efforts to negotiate a ceasefire, while Arab and Western countries call for a lasting solution to the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza next to Israel.
His cabinet on Sunday formalized its opposition to what it called the “unilateral recognition” of the Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)