Israel raids main Gaza hospital as worries over Rafah grow

Israel says militants in facility and kept hostages there, but Hamas calls it lies

Israeli forces raided the biggest functioning hospital in Gaza, they said on Feb 15, as videos posted online showed chaos, shouting and the sound of shooting in darkened corridors that were filled with dust and smoke.

The raid on the hospital comes as international concern grows over the fate of some one million Palestinians taking shelter in the southern city of Rafah, after Israel earlier in February announced plans to expand its operations there.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari described the raid on Nasser Hospital as "precise and limited". He said the operation was based on credible information that militant group Hamas was hiding in the facility and had kept hostages there, and that bodies of hostages may still be there.

A spokesperson for Hamas denied that, calling it "lies".

The health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave said Israel had forced out displaced people and families of medical staff sheltering in Nasser Hospital.

The current war in Gaza began on Oct 7 when Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's retaliatory air and ground offensive has since devastated tiny, crowded Gaza, killing more than 28,500 people, according to the enclave's Health Ministry. It has also forced nearly all of Gaza's inhabitants from their homes.

The United Nations humanitarian office said on Feb 14 that Nasser Hospital was besieged by Israeli forces, with allegations of sniper fire at the facility, endangering the lives of medics, patients and thousands of displaced people.

Medical charity Medicins San Frontieres - also known as Doctors Without Borders - said people ordered by Israel to evacuate the hospital faced an impossible choice: to stay "and become a potential target" or leave for "an apocalyptic landscape" of bombings.