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Israeli forces have raided southern Gaza’s largest hospital, destroying part of the compound as they searched for hostages held in the strip and Hamas fighters.
The raid came a day after Israel ordered thousands of people sheltering in Nasser hospital, the last big medical facility functioning in the besieged strip, to evacuate from the compound in Khan Younis city.
Gaza’s health ministry said Israel had launched a “massive incursion” that wounded many of the displaced people still in the compound. The ministry added that Israeli forces had ordered health workers to move patients to a different part of the hospital.
“Many cannot evacuate, such as those with lower limb amputations, severe burns, or the elderly,” the ministry told Al Jazeera.
The Israel Defense Forces said they had “credible intelligence that Hamas held hostages” in the hospital and “appear to be operating from within the hospital, too”.
The IDF said it apprehended a number of suspects in what it described as a “precise and limited operation”.
Hamas seized about 250 hostages during its October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and triggered the war. About 130 remain in the strip, although some are believed to have died.
“Sadly, we know that some hostages are no longer alive. We are committed to finding and returning the bodies of those hostages in Gaza,” said IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.
“We conduct precise rescue operations — as we have in the past — where our intelligence indicates that the bodies of hostages may be held,” he added.
During Israel’s retaliatory air, land and sea offensive in Gaza, which Palestinian officials said has killed more than 28,000 people, Israeli forces have targeted numerous hospitals, accusing Hamas of using medical facilities for military purposes.
Nasser is the last remaining large hospital in the Gaza Strip after the IDF besieged and raided al-Shifa hospital, under which the Israeli military said it found evidence of tunnels used by Hamas militants.
Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement that Israeli forces destroyed the hospital’s southern wall, targeted a base for ambulances and dug up a mass grave in the compound.
The UN has repeatedly warned that Israel’s offensive has pushed the strip’s health system into a state of collapse, with severe shortages of basic medical supplies and equipment. Medics have said they are being forced to carry out amputations without anaesthetic.
The World Health Organization estimated that only 11 hospitals were left partially functioning in Gaza, none of them as large as Nasser. About 22 had shut down, while three field hospitals in the south of the enclave were operational.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have been mediating talks to halt the war to secure the remaining hostages and increase the delivery of aid into Gaza, where the UN said a deepening humanitarian catastrophe was unfolding.
But talks between CIA director Bill Burns, Israeli spy chiefs and senior Qatari and Egyptian officials in Cairo on Tuesday appeared to make little progress.
The diplomatic efforts have been bogged down by Hamas’s insistence that any agreement to pause hostilities and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners must end with a permanent ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected a permanent ceasefire and vowed to push for a “total victory” over Hamas. On Wednesday, he said the talks would not advance unless Hamas changed its position.
But Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, who is based in Doha, reiterated the group’s position on Thursday, saying any agreement must guarantee a “ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza”.
The US and others still believe a hostage deal provides the best opportunity to push for a halt to the war in Gaza and ease the humanitarian crisis in the strip.
International concern about Israel’s offensive has escalated since Netanyahu ordered the military to prepare to evacuate civilians from Rafah, the southern city that is packed with more than 1mn displaced people.