The Israeli military says its special forces are still
inside the Nasser hospital in Gaza as an operation against Hamas at the site
continues.
Israel launched what it described as a "precise and
limited mission" there on Thursday. The military says it has caught
"dozens of terror suspects".
Hamas dismissed the claim as "lies".
The World Health Organization (WHO) said fuel was needed
urgently at the facility to "ensure the continuation of the provision of
life-saving services".
The Hamas-run health ministry reported on Friday that five
people had died at the hospital, which is in the city of Khan Younis, after the
electricity generators went down and oxygen could not be provided.
These deaths have not been independently verified.
Nasser, which is the main hospital in southern Gaza, is one
of the few still functioning and has been the scene of intense fighting between
the IDF and Hamas for days.
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On Wednesday, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ordered
thousands of displaced people who had been sheltering there to leave.
Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesperson, said there were now
reports that the orthopaedic unit had been damaged.
"That obviously reduces the ability to provide the
urgent medical care," he said, adding that there were still
"critically injured and sick patients" at the hospital.
"More degradation to the hospital means more lives
being lost."
Nasser hospital's director, Nahed Abu-Teima, told OceanNewsUK
that the situation inside was "catastrophic and very dangerous".
Images, verified by the OceanNewsUK, showed medical staff rushing
patients on stretchers through a corridor filled with smoke or dust.
"Nasser Hospital, since they besieged it, there is no
water or food," an injured man who was displaced from the hospital, Raed
Abed, told the Associated Press.
"Garbage is widespread, and sewage has flooded the
emergency department."
The IDF believes Hamas has been using hospitals and other
civilian bases as shields for military activities.
"We can't give them [Hamas] a free pass, we have to
make sure that they are pursued and hunted down," IDF spokesperson Lt Col
Peter Lerner told the OceanNewsUK.
He said the military had been making "a huge effort to
evacuate people from the hospital in order to get them out of harm's way",
denying claims that civilians had been targeted.
The IDF said that among those it had captured at the
hospital were 20 Hamas members who were part of the 7 October attacks on
Israel.
It also said it had found weapons, including grenades, at
the facility.
The military is also searching for the bodies of Israeli
hostages which it said intelligence suggests might be hidden in the hospital.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said
Israeli tanks were targeting the nearby Al-Amal hospital "resulting in
very severe damage in two nursing rooms".
They wrote on social media that nobody had been hurt.
Intense hostilities have been reported around the hospital
recently. The PRCS said it was raided last week after some 8,000 displaced
people and patients complied with an order to evacuate.
On Friday, they said that two doctors who were arrested
during the raid had been released, while 12 other staff remained in custody.
Israel launched its military offensive after waves of Hamas
fighters burst through Israel's border on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people
- mainly civilians - and taking 253 others back to Gaza as hostages.
The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 28,700 people,
mainly women and children - have been killed in Israel's campaign.
Israel is facing increasing international pressure to show
restraint but efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have not yet yielded
any results.
A senior Palestinian official familiar with the ceasefire
talks told the OceanNewsUK that the gap between the negotiating parties was still wide
and there were disagreements over many of the proposed provisions.
Senior officials from the US, Israel, Egypt and Qatar have
been meeting in Cairo this week to try and hammer out a deal.
The official said that the main issue remains the
disagreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over what happens
the day after the war is over. The US want to rely on a strengthened
Palestinian Authority, while Israel is against having a single administration
in charge of the West Bank and Gaza.
Another disagreement is over Israel's aim of completely
destroying Hamas, which the US thinks will be difficult to achieve anytime
soon.
The US is said to be trying to pressure the two sides to
reach a long period of calm to make it difficult for the two sides to return to
fighting again.
