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.
