Patients evacuated from Nasser Hospital, Gaza’s second-largest, as WHO says it has stopped ‘functioning’ amid attacks

(NEW YORK) — Patients are being evacuated from Gaza’s second-largest hospital, which has been under attack from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

At least 14 patients have been moved from Nasser Hospital — located in the southern city of Khan Younis — with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Monday.

Nine patients are currently receiving care in European Gaza, International Medical Corps, UAE and Indonesia field hospitals, and five patients are in Al-Aqsa hospital in the south, the WHO said in a Monday release.

Among the evacuated patients were two who needed continuous manual ventilation throughout their journey, according to the WHO.

Prior to the evacuation, the WHO said it and its partners had been denied entry into Nasser Hospital for two days.

“There are still more than 180 patients and 15 doctors and nurses inside Nasser,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. “The hospital is still experiencing an acute shortage of food, basic medical supplies, and oxygen. There is no tap water and no electricity, except a backup generator maintaining some lifesaving machines.”

Additionally, the ministry claims at least five people have died since the hospital lost power and that Israeli forces have arrested medical staff, including the director of the hospital and the only doctor responsible for caring for patients in the ICU.

Ghebreyesus previously stated in a post on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday that the hospital was “not functioning anymore.”

Israel has disputed the hospital is no longer functional. According to a post on Monday on X by Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which coordinates humanitarian aid for Gaza, supplies have been delivered to Nasser Hospital.

Among the aid includes a tanker carrying diesel fuel, water bottles, bread loaves, a replacement generator and medicine donated by the WHO, COGAT said.

“The Nasser hospital was operational during the entire IDF activity,” COGAT posted. “We facilitated humanitarian aid and supplies to the hospital and coordinated a UN team to evacuate the patients.”

In addition, the IDF claimed it found medicine meant for the Israeli hostages as well as weapons and terrorists, some of whom were allegedly posing as medical staff.

“Boxes of medicine were found with the names of Israeli hostages on them,” the IDF said in a statement on Sunday. “The packages of medicine that were found were sealed and had not been transferred to the hostages.”

The IDF said Monday it has arrested 200 people at the Nasser Hospital complex suspected of being terrorists.

Since Hamas’ surprise terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, nearly 29,000 people in Gaza have been killed and more than 68,800 have been injured, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. About 1,200 have been killed in Israel, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

The IDF said 573 soldiers have been killed since the war began and 235 have been killed since the ground invasion began.

Additionally, there are about 134 hostages still believed to be in captivity in Gaza, 130 of them related to the current war and four related to the 2014 conflict. Of the 134, at least 32 are believed to be dead, according to the IDF and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

ABC News’ Sami Zayara contributed to this report.

 

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