GAZA, (PIC)
Amid sniper attacks, the Israeli occupation army forced dozens of Palestinian displaced families who were seeking refuge in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern the Gaza Strip, to leave the facility on Wednesday.
Palestinian citizens started in the morning to evacuate the main hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, according to videos shared by medics on Wednesday.
Weeks of heavy Israeli bombing and shooting attacks had isolated the medical facility and claimed the lives of several civilians and medical workers inside it.
Those sheltering inside the hospital started to leave the hospital after the Israeli army airdropped pamphlets on Tuesday ordering only the displaced civilians to leave.
An estimated 300 medics, 450 patients, and hundreds of displaced people were still in the hospital on Wednesday morning.
Later, Al Jazeera satellite channel said that the displaced civilians who left the hospital had to return to the facility after Israeli forces at a nearby checkpoint prevented them from continuing to walk and kidnaped a number of them.
The people sheltering in the hospital already were too scared to evacuate due to news of Israeli soldiers and drones opening fire at anyone walking outside the facility.
Videos that widely circulated on social media show hundreds of people leaving the hospital grounds as Israeli armed quadcopters were hovering over the premises.
For its part, the health ministry in Gaza said that the Israeli army killed a number of displaced civilians and injured others after they left the hospital.
Spokesman for the ministry Ashraf al-Qudra called on the UN to work immediately on protecting the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis and the civilians inside it, saying the facility “is being exposed to Israeli aggression and tight siege.”
Spokesman Qudra appealed to the UN and its institutions to save the medical crews and the displaced and wounded civilians at the hospital as “they are facing a health and humanitarian catastrophe.”
He also reported deteriorating conditions at the hospital with sewage water flooding the emergency room and piles of garbage and medical waste building up in the hospital’s hallways, which raises the risk of disease.
Food supplies and drinking water have already run out at the hospital, according to medical sources from the facility.
