Gaza’s health ministry said Friday that electric generators cut out and all power was lost at a major Gaza hospital raided by Israeli forces a day earlier, leading to the deaths of three patients dependent on oxygen.
The Gaza health ministry said in posts on Facebook that the Israeli military was in control of the hospital, the Nasser Medical Complex, but did not specify how or why the generators had stopped. The claims could not be independently verified. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel’s military pushed into the Nasser complex, in the southern city of Khan Younis, in the predawn hours Thursday, smashing through the perimeter and entering the compound as explosions and gunfire rang out. The aid group Doctors Without Borders said Thursday that its staff had to evacuate but that the weakest patients had stayed behind.
The Israeli military had ordered all remaining staff and patients into one building, according to a voice memo from a doctor provided by the group.
Early Friday, the Hamas-run health ministry said on its Facebook page that the hospital’s power supply had cut out, endangering the lives of six adult patients and three infants in intensive care dependent on oxygen. About 40 minutes later, it said in another post that three of the patients had died.
The Israeli military’s evacuation ordersbefore the raid on the Nasser complex, , which had been the largest functioning hospital left in Gaza and had thousands of civilians sheltering on its grounds, sparked alarm from international observers.
“Nasser is the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, wrote on X earlier in the week. “It must be protected.”
Israel’s military late Thursday said it was continuing its search of hospital grounds. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, said its forces had not located any hostages taken in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. The military said earlier that its raid on the Nasser hospital was based partly on intelligence that captives had been held there and that their bodies may have been at the hospital grounds.
Admiral Hagari also identified three people he said were located on the grounds of Nasser Hospital linked to the Oct. 7 attacks or an armed group, in an apparent effort to shore up justification for its raid.
One man was an ambulance driver who had transported hostages into Gaza as part of the Hamas attacks, and another admitted to taking part in the killings on that day, Admiral Hagari said. A third man was a “known” member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, he said.
“We found more, dozens more,” he said, saying the military would provide additional details in coming days.
Several were killed and wounded including at least one physician and patient in Thursday morning’s incursion. Videos showed chaotic scenes inside the hospital’s smoke-filled corridors, with parts of the ceiling collapsing and wire and beams protruding as gurneys are being rushed past.
