CAIRO: Gaza’s largest functioning hospital was under siege by Israelis forces on Friday, leaving patients and doctors helpless in the chaos, as warplanes struck Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians in the enclave, officials said.

Israeli forces said they had raided the medical complex as footage showed shouting and gunfire in dark corridors in an incursion that raised fresh alarm over the fate of hundreds of patients and medical workers and the many displaced Palestinians who had sought shelter there from the fighting.

Israel’s military called the raid on Nasser Hospital “precise and limited” and said it was based on information that Hamas members hiding there had kept prisoners in the facility.

The Palestinian health ministry said five patients at the hospital died in intensive care as a result of power outages and the cessation of oxygen supply.

ICJ to begin hearing arguments from 52 countries about legal consequences of the occupation of Palestinian territories from Monday

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday it was trying to reach Nasser Hospital, after the Israeli raid. “There are still critically injured and sick patients that are inside the hospital,” WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said.

“There is an urgent need to deliver fuel to ensure the continuation of the provision of life-saving services… We are trying to get access because people who are still in Nasser medical complex need assistance.”

Israel’s air and ground offensive has devastated Gaza, killing 28,775 people, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities, and displacing nearly all of its more than two million inhabitants from their homes.

The Gaza health ministry said Israeli forces inside Nasser Hospital forced women and children to go into the maternity department, which it had turned into a military area.

ICJ hearing begins next week

Amid mounting international concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as Israeli military decides to storm Rafah, where two million Palestinians had moved in recent months, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will begin hearing arguments of a record 52 states about the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The ICJ’s hearings come after the UN General Assembly asked the court in 2022 for an advisory, or non-binding, opinion on the occupation.

The court will hear over 50 states and three international organisations, including the US, Russia, China and South Africa, beginning with submissions from the Palestinian authorities on Monday.

Israel has filed a written statement with the court, but has not asked to participate in the hearings.

Israel has ignored such opinions in the past, though it could add political pressure over its ongoing operation in Gaza. “Politically, this will help in achieving a two-state solution. We are using the platform of the largest judicial body to advance our cause,” Omar Awadallah, a senior official in the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, told journalists at a briefing before the hearings.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — areas of historic Palestine which the Palestinians want for a state — in a 1967 war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but along with neighbouring Egypt still controls its borders.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2024