2024-03-24 12:27:52
The Israeli army storms Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals in Khan Yunis amid violent bombardment
The Palestinian Red Crescent said today (Sunday) that Israeli forces stormed Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, amid very violent bombardment and heavy gunfire.
The Red Crescent added, in a statement, that Israeli vehicles surrounded Al-Amal Hospital and carried out extensive bulldozing operations around the hospital, according to the Arab World News Agency.
The statement stated that all hospital staff are “currently under extreme danger, and cannot move at all.”
Israeli forces say that Hamas fighters often use hospitals in the Palestinian Strip, where a war has been raging for more than 5 months, as strongholds and bases for them and to store weapons. The movement and medical teams deny this.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that one of its employees was killed when Israeli tanks suddenly entered the areas surrounding Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, amid violent bombardment and gunfire.
The Red Crescent indicated, in a new statement, that one of the displaced people at Al Amal Hospital was injured in the head, adding: “The drones are demanding that everyone in the hospital leave naked.”
He added that the Israeli forces fired “smoke bombs at the hospital to force the staff, the wounded, and the displaced to leave it.” The occupation vehicles closed the gates of Al-Amal Hospital with dirt barriers.”
The Palestinian News and Information Agency (Wafa) quoted eyewitnesses as saying that “the aerial bombardment was concentrated south and east of Nasser Complex and the Batn al-Sameen area, in addition to continuous artillery shelling targeting the same areas, and shooting from helicopters and marches, which led to the death and injury of a number of citizens.” ».
The Red Crescent added that the Israeli forces are now demanding the complete evacuation of the medical staff, patients and displaced persons from the Al Amal Hospital headquarters, and are launching smoke bombs into the area to force those inside to leave.
The Israeli army said that its forces were bombing “infrastructure” in Khan Yunis that is used as gathering points for many militants. Hamas denies using hospitals for military purposes, and accuses Israel of committing war crimes against civilian targets.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that Israeli forces arrested dozens of patients and medical workers at the Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, north of the Strip, which has been under Israeli control for a week.
Al-Shifa Hospital was one of the few healthcare facilities that was even partially functioning in northern Gaza, and like other facilities it also housed some of the nearly two million civilians, representing more than 80 percent of Gaza’s population, who were displaced by the war.
Residents of Khan Yunis said that Israeli tanks also advanced in a neighborhood in the west of the city near Nasser Hospital, under the cover of heavy fire from the air and ground.
In Rafah, a town located in the far south of the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian border, and which has become the last refuge for half of Gaza’s displaced population, health officials said that an Israeli air strike on a house resulted in the deaths of 7 people.
The Ministry of Health said in an update, today (Sunday), that at least 32,226 Palestinians were killed, including 84 during the past 24 hours, and 74,518 others were injured in the Israeli air and ground attack on the highly populated coastal area since October 7.
The war broke out when gunmen led by Hamas stormed the border fence into southern Israel in a surprise attack on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages to Gaza, according to Israel.
The joint mediation efforts of Qatar and Egypt, with the support of the United States, have not yet succeeded in reaching a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, releasing detainees and providing unrestricted aid to civilians in Gaza who are facing famine, given each side’s adherence to its basic demands. .
Hamas wants any truce agreement to include an Israeli commitment to end the war and withdraw forces from Gaza, while Israel rules that out, saying that it will continue fighting until Hamas is eliminated as a political and military force.
According to Wafa Agency, thousands of displaced people took refuge in Nasser Hospital, escaping the Israeli bombing. On February 15, the occupation forces raided the hospital, in an operation that lasted 10 days, during which they killed dozens of displaced people, medical staff, and patients inside the hospital and arrested hundreds of displaced people there, in addition to carrying out destruction and bombing of various buildings and sections of the hospital.
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