Israeli forces, engaged in the fight for control of the main city in southern Gaza, bombarded areas near the largest operational hospital in the region today, Thursday, prompting patients and residents to flee from a battle that they fear could devastate the city. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), whose doctors work at Nasser Hospital in the city, indicated that patients and displaced individuals who had sought refuge in the hospital are fleeing in a state of panic. According to surgeons from Médecins Sans Frontières at Nasser Hospital, Israeli forces heavily shelled the area near the hospital last night without prior evacuation orders, causing patients and many thousands of displaced civilians who had taken refuge in the hospital to flee in terror.
Sixteen bodies were placed on blood-stained gravel outside a morgue in Rafah in the southern sector, most wrapped in white shrouds, while some were in plastic bags. A strike last night obliterated a branch of the Al-Zamli family after their homes were destroyed. Half of the shrouds were small, containing the bodies of children. Authorities reported that a total of 17 people were killed. A man with graying hair wept in sorrow, clinging to one of the bodies and resting his face against it. A woman wearing a pink hijab knelt and held one of the shrouds. The bombing completely destroyed the home, and a little girl's school bag was buried under the rubble. Tears streamed down the face of Mahmoud Al-Zamli (10), the cousin of the girl who lived in the neighboring house and managed to escape.
Mahmoud, crying, said, "They bombed the house next to us... May God suffice me and He is the best disposer of affairs; they destroyed our homes, destroyed everything." He added, "They all died, and here I am still alive; may God suffice me and He is the best disposer of affairs." The fiercest battle of the year so far is ongoing in the city of Khan Younis, which is sheltering hundreds of thousands of those fleeing from the north at the onset of the war that has now entered its fourth month.
Over three months into the war that has resulted in the deaths of more than 24,000 Palestinians and the destruction of a significant portion of Gaza, Israel has stated that it plans to scale back its ground operations to more limited ones. However, it appears that Israel is determined to fully seize Khan Younis before reducing its operations, which it claims is a stronghold for fighters of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), who breached the border fence on October 7, resulting in the deaths of 1,200 people and the capture of 240 hostages. In turn, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos while sitting beside a picture of a child, stated, "His whereabouts are unknown... I call upon the entire universe to work tirelessly for the liberation of Kefer and all the hostages."
