Palestinians Describe Terrifying and Chaotic Flight from Gaza Hospital

Kites are flown over Rafah as smoke billows following Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on February 20, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
Kites are flown over Rafah as smoke billows following Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on February 20, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
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Palestinians Describe Terrifying and Chaotic Flight from Gaza Hospital

Kites are flown over Rafah as smoke billows following Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on February 20, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)
Kites are flown over Rafah as smoke billows following Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on February 20, 2024, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP)

Gunfire echoed around Palestinian medics, patients and displaced people during what they described as a terrifying and chaotic night evacuation from Gaza's Nasser Hospital after it was stormed by Israeli forces.

Survivors of last week's assault on the second-biggest hospital in Gaza said they then faced a treacherous walk to safety through the dark, passing corpses along the way.

One doctor said a male nurse was detained at an Israeli checkpoint, stripped naked and taken away screaming.

"Smoke was everywhere, it was like doomsday, people running everywhere," said Doctor Ahmed al-Mughraby, head of the plastic surgery department, who fled with his wife and children.

Mughraby, who has found refuge with his family in the southern city of Rafah, said Israeli forces had ordered everyone to evacuate except patients unable to walk and medics looking after them.

Details of the military assault on Nasser Hospital have been gradually emerging as the people who fled or were evacuated reach Rafah, the last relatively safe place in the Gaza Strip about six miles (10 km) away on the border with Egypt.

Israel described the assault as a precision operation conducted by special forces aimed at recovering the bodies of Israeli hostages. It said there had been no obligation on patients and staff to leave, and efforts were made to ensure the hospital could keep functioning.

But the raid has prompted alarm among aid agencies, and the World Health Organization said the amount of damage was "indescribable".

The WHO, the UN health agency, has carried out two evacuations from Nasser Hospital since Thursday but said on Tuesday it was concerned about nearly 150 patients and medics remaining there as fighting continues.

After besieging the hospital, Israeli forces entered it last Thursday and said they had detained hundreds of militants hiding there, with some posing as hospital staff.

Hamas has denied using the hospital, and calls Israel's allegations "lies". The Health Ministry in Gaza has said Israel has detained 70 staff and volunteers working at the facility.

The WHO said the hospital stopped functioning last week after the Israeli siege and raid, and no longer had electricity or running water, with medical waste and garbage creating a breeding ground for disease.

Drone fire, ‘aggressive dogs’

Nasser Hospital was the biggest hospital still operating in Gaza more than four months into the war that began when fighters from the Palestinian militant group Hamas raided Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave say.

Hakeem Salem Hussein Baraka said the Nasser Hospital orthopedic department where he had been working as a volunteer had been destroyed, and that he saw a patient cut in two by an explosion.

Baraka said a "quadcopter" drone had fired at medical staff taking a break between shifts and "aggressive" dogs with cameras placed round their necks by Israel's military had been roaming the hospital.

The Israeli military said its forces had fought "complex battles" before entering the hospital compound and came under rocket fire from fighters barricaded inside the hospital. It said troops found large quantities of weapons and vehicles linked to the Oct. 7 attack.

"We gave people an opportunity to evacuate before we entered the hospital," Colonel Moshe Tetro told a news briefing. Asked whether there was any gunfire or combat within the hospital, he said: "No".

As Palestinians left the hospital before dawn, some had to wade through sewage, said Rasmeya Saleem Abu Jamoos, a dialysis patient who fled with her blind husband, Abu Jamoos.

He was among people detained at a military checkpoint after leaving the hospital, she said.

The doctor, Mughraby, said his ward had been hit by Israeli fire and that he believed three patients had been killed in the strike. Reuters was unable to verify this.

He said he and his family had left the hospital with three patients and some staff members but one, a department nurse, was stopped.

"They made him take off all his clothes so he was naked and they took him to detention. I could hear his screams," he said.

Mughraby said those who made it through the checkpoint then had a long walk across a battlefield to reach help. Some were sick or injured.

Baraa Ahmed Abu Mustafa, who was on mismatching crutches, said shots were fired over their heads as they went and there were dead bodies near the hospital entrance.

"I'm injured and for one hour I walked," he said. "It was dangerous and the road was bad."



Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, is attempting to bridge divides within the party over the war in Gaza, emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself while also focusing on alleviating Palestinian suffering.

She delivered remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that reflected a delicate balancing act on one of the country's most divisive political issues. Some Democrats have been critical of President Joe Biden's steadfast support for Israel despite the increasing death toll among Palestinians, and Harris is trying to unite her party for the election battle with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies," she said. "We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent."

Harris did not deviate from the administration's approach to the conflict, including grueling negotiations aimed at ending the fighting, releasing hostages held by Hamas and eventually rebuilding Gaza. She also said nothing about military assistance for Israel, which some Democrats want to cut.

Instead, she tried to refocus the conversation around mitigating the calamity in Gaza, and she used language intended to nudge Americans toward an elusive middle ground.

"The war in Gaza is not a binary issue," she said. "But too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but."

In addition, Harris made a more explicit appeal to voters who have been frustrated by the ceaseless bloodshed, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

"To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you," she said.

Harris' meeting with Netanyahu was private, and she described it as "frank and constructive." She also emphasized her longtime support for Israel, which includes raising money to plant trees in the country when she was a young girl.

Jewish Americans traditionally lean Democratic, but Republicans have tried to make inroads. Trump claimed this week that Harris "is totally against the Jewish people" because she didn't attend Netanyahu's address to a joint meeting of Congress. The vice president was traveling in Indiana during the speech.

Harris is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, who has played an outspoken role in the administration's efforts to combat antisemitism.

Netanyahu did not speak publicly after his meeting with Harris. His trip was scheduled before Biden dropped his reelection bid, but the meeting with Harris was watched closely for clues to her views on Israel.

"She is in a tricky situation and walking a tightrope where she’s still the vice president and the president really is the one who leads on the foreign policy agenda," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat whose city is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the nation. "But as the candidate, the presumptive nominee, she has to now create the space to differentiate in order for her to chart a new course."

Protesters gathered outside Union Station on the day of Netanyahu's speech, ripping down American flags and spray painting "Hamas is coming."

Harris sharply criticized those actions, saying there were "despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric. "

"I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation," she said in a statement.

As vice president, Harris has tried to show little daylight between herself and Biden. But David Rothkopf, a foreign policy writer who has met with her, said there's been "a noticeable difference in tone, particularly in regards to concern for the plight of innocent Palestinians."

The difference was on display in Selma, Alabama, in March, when Harris commemorated the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights in 1965.

During her speech, Harris said that "given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire."

The audience broke out in applause. A few sentences later, Harris emphasized that it was up to Hamas to accept the deal that had been offered. But her demand for a ceasefire still resonated in ways that Biden's comments had not.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that about 6 in 10 Democrats disapproved of the way Biden is handling the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Roughly the same number said Israel's military response in Gaza had gone too far.

Israeli analysts said they doubted that Harris would present a dramatic shift in policies toward their country.

Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said Harris was from a generation of American politicians who felt they could both support Israel and publicly criticize its policies.

"The question is as president, what would she do?" Freilich said. "I think she would put considerably more pressure on Israel on the Palestinian issue overall."