Why Israel has entered southern Gaza hospital to fight Hamas

Israeli special forces entered Nasser Hospital on Thursday to fight against Palestinian militant group Hamas, accusing fighters of holding hostages at the medical facility that humanitarian groups have warned should not become a battleground in the war.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said there was “credible evidence” that Hamas used Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, a city in southern Gaza, as a base for hostage-keeping and that special forces units trained for this specific mission would conduct a “precise and limited operation” at the facility.

Hagari alleged intelligence indicates that 85 percent of medical facilities in Gaza are used for Hamas military operations.

“There may be bodies of our hostages in the Nasser Hospital facility,” he said in a video, adding Israeli forces also “seek to hunt down Hamas terrorists wherever they may be hiding.”

He noted that they have communicated with hospital staff and said there is no need to evacuate, but they also used loudspeakers to tell other nearby Palestinians to leave the area through a humanitarian corridor. Hagari added that Israel sent medical supplies to the hospital and it does not seek to shut down crucial life-saving operations.

International medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders said a forced evacuation of the hospital began Tuesday when an Israeli military bulldozer destroyed a northern entrance gate and ordered people to leave.

“People have been forced into an impossible situation: 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 part of daily life,” said Lisa Macheiner, the group’s project coordinator in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders, which has staff on the ground, said at least five people have already been killed and 10 others wounded this week by shots fired at the hospital.

More than 28,000 people have died in Gaza since the war started, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.

A spokesperson for the Health Ministry condemned the Israeli raid of Nasser in a statement on Facebook, saying it has forced staff “to keep intensive care patients without medical equipment, which puts their lives in grave danger.”

Israel’s fighting in Gaza hospitals has sparked concerns from human rights groups and nations critical of the war in the coastal strip.

In November, Israel raided Gaza City’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, after also claiming it was a base for terrorist operations. The raid sparked major concerns at the time.

While Israel showed evidence of some military activity at Al-Shifa, including guns and laptops and what appeared to be a nearby Hamas tunnel, critics have questioned whether the material uncovered justified a raid.

Under the Geneva Convention laws of war, medical facilities are not lawful targets unless they have been used by a military unit.

The military has fought in several hospitals across the Gaza Strip in the war with Hamas, which Israel is waging against the group in retaliation for an attack on Oct. 7 in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw the kidnapping of around 240 hostages.

The World Health Organization said Feb. 9 there have been more than 350 attacks on Gaza medical facilities in the war and more than 645 people have died.