“We are, at the U.N., coordinating, asking, and looking for — urgently — access to the hospital,” Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, told reporters at a briefing Friday.
“There are critically injured and sick patients that are still inside the hospital,” he said. “There is an urgent need to deliver fuel and to ensure the continuation of the provision of lifesaving services.”
Israel released intelligence it said shows that 30 employees of the U.N. agency for Palestinian affairs participated in the Hamas-led attack on Israel Oct. 7 that sparked the current conflict.
The United Nations is investigating Israeli allegations that 12 U.N. Relief and Works Agency employees joined in the assault, in which Israeli officials say 1,200 people were killed and 253 more taken hostage. The United States and 15 other countries have suspended funding to the agency pending the results.
“UNRWA has lost legitimacy and can no longer function as a U.N. body,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday. “I have instructed the defense establishment to begin transferring responsibilities related to the delivery of aid, to additional organizations.”
UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler said that the organization was unaware of the alleged involvement of its personnel in the Oct. 7 assault.
Gaza is bracing for a planned Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah, now crowded with refugees. Video and satellite imagery published by The Washington Post Thursday showed Egypt clearing and fencing off a plot of land along its border with the enclave.
Both countries on Friday denied plans to move Palestinians into Egypt.
“The State of Israel has no intention of evacuating Palestinian civilians to Egypt,” Gallant told reporters. “We respect and value our peace agreement with Egypt, which is a cornerstone of stability in the region as well as an important partner.”
Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, said any fencing and clearing work was a routine measure meant to maintain the integrity of Egypt’s borders.
Egypt’s support for Palestinian statehood, Rashwan said in a statement, demanded a “complete and irreversible rejection of any forced or voluntary displacement of Palestinian brothers from the Gaza Strip to outside it, especially to Egyptian lands.”
The Israel Defense Forces stormed Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Thursday in an operation it described as “precise and limited” and based on intelligence indicating the bodies of hostages were being held at the facility.
The IDF said Friday that its forces had “apprehended dozens of terror suspects,” including at least 20 accused of participating in the Oct. 7 attack.
Hazem Bahloul, a physician at the hospital, said early Friday that the compound had been without electricity or water for hours. The Gaza Health Ministry said five people on ventilators had died as a result of the blackout and two women gave birth in “inhumane conditions.”
Even before the raid, Jasarevic said, fierce fighting had left the hospital “barely functionable.” Still, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week that it was “the backbone of the health system in southern Gaza.”
The IDF ordered the evacuation of thousands of displaced people sheltering at the complex and was relocating staff and patients to specific buildings, Bahloul and the Gaza Health Ministry said.
On Friday, the Health Ministry said, the Israeli military ordered male patients to report to the maternity ward, where its forces established a makeshift military barracks. The IDF said it was “checking” on the report its troops had converted the maternity ward into a temporary base.
Bahloul said Thursday that he moved the hospital’s old internal medicine department with approximately 50 health workers and 100 patients. Jasarevic on Friday called the reports “concerning.”
“Patients cannot easily move without putting their health in danger,” he said.
IDF Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday that the hospital will continue “its important function of treating Gazan patients.”
“There is no obligation for patients or staff to evacuate,” he said. He said supplies and equipment were transferred in coordination with international organizations.
Mohammed Harara, an emergency doctor at Nasser, uploaded a video Thursday that appeared to show part of the hospital in darkness, engulfed by thick dust and some rubble, while gunfire can be heard in the background. “We are attacked by the Israeli army at the hospital,” Harara says in the video. “Is there anyone still inside? There is gunfire! There is gunfire! Heads down!”
Doctors Without Borders, which has medical staff in the hospital, said some had to flee the facility, leaving patients behind. One was detained at a checkpoint while leaving the compound, the group said on social media.
U.N. Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani expressed concern over the raid, which she said followed a week-long siege that cut off medical, food and fuel supplies.
“The raid appears to be part of a pattern of attacks by Israeli forces striking essential lifesaving civilian infrastructure in Gaza, especially hospitals,” she said. She said the office has documented similar raids across the enclave that have “serious consequences for the safety” of patients, staff and civilians taking shelter.
The Israeli military began to encircle the hospital last month, alleging in late January that Hamas militants were operating “inside and around” the complex.
Gallant on Friday released the names and photographs of the 12 UNRWA employees who Israel previously said participated in the Oct. 7 attack. UNRWA has terminated 10 of the employees, the agency said; the other two are dead.
Gallant said intelligence indicates that over 30 UNRWA workers participated in the Oct. 7 assault. Gallant said that 12 percent of UNRWA’s staff of 13,000 are affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller Islamist group in the Gaza Strip.
Frances Vinall in Melbourne and Cate Brown in Washington contributed to this report.
