Palestinian Territories– The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said five patients died Friday due to lack of oxygen at one of the war-torn Palestinian territory’s few operating hospitals that had been raided by Israeli forces.
The Israeli army meanwhile said its troops found medications with the names of Israeli hostages at the Nasser hospital during their operation.
Five patients from the intensive care unit had died “as a result of the stopping of generators that caused a cut in oxygen supply”, the health ministry in Gaza said, raising fears for four other patients admitted at the unit and three children in a nursery.
“We hold the Israeli occupation responsible for the lives of patients and staff considering that the complex is now under its full control,” it said in a statement.
A witness, who declined to be named out of fear for their safety, said army snipers shot “at anyone who moved inside the hospital” and that “military vehicles surrounding” it also opened fire.
On Thursday the ministry said hundreds of people, including patients and medical staff, had still been inside the hospital complex.
“The occupation forces are still detaining a large number of medical staff, patients and displaced people in the maternity building, and are subjecting them to interrogations,” the ministry said late Friday.
The Israeli army said Thursday it had launched a “precise” operation in the hospital after receiving “credible intelligence” to suggest hostages had been held inside, and that the bodies of hostages may be in the facility.
Later Thursday the army said it had “not yet found any evidence of this”, although forces had found “weapons, grenades and mortar bombs” at the hospital complex.
But late on Friday the army said troops found medications with the names of Israeli hostages at the hospital.
“The source of the medications and their use are being reviewed,” it said.
The army further said that all vital systems continued to operate at the hospital despite a generator malfunction, denying it had targeted the generator.
“IDF (army) troops worked to repair the generator while… special forces brought in an alternative generator to the hospital,” the military added.
For weeks, thousands of people displaced by the war have taken refuge at the Nasser hospital complex.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday that shelling of the hospital had forced its staff to flee, leaving patients behind.