Israeli attacks drive Gaza's Nasser hospital 'completely out of service'

Fighting, fuel shortages and Israeli raids put Gaza's second-largest hospital completely out of service, local and United Nations health officials said.

The Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis went out of action early on Sunday, Palestinian health ministry spokesperson in Gaza Ashraf al Qidra told Reuters.

Gaza's hospitals have been a focal point of the four-month-old Israeli war on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

It still sheltered scores of patients suffering from war wounds and Gaza's worsening health crisis, but there was no power and not enough staff to treat them all, health officials said.

"It's gone completely out of service. There are only four medical teams - 25 staff - currently caring for patients inside the facility," he said.

Qidra said the water supply to the hospital had halted because generators had been out of action for three days, sewage was flooding emergency rooms and the remaining staff had no way of treating intensive care patients.

A lack of oxygen supplies - also a result of having no power - had caused the deaths of at least seven patients, he said.

Ongoing onslaught

The latest blow to Gaza's destroyed healthcare sector came as Israel prepared for an assault of the southernmost city Rafah, home now to more than a million mostly displaced Palestinians - a move that the international community, including Israel's backer the United States, has warned would create enormous human suffering.

Israel's air and ground offensive has devastated much of Gaza and forced nearly all of its inhabitants from their homes. Palestinian health authorities say 28,985 people, mostly civilians, have been killed.

Israel has pounded Gaza since a cross-border attack by Hamas on October 7, believed to have killed around 1,200 Israelis.

Most of Gaza's hospitals have been put out of action by Israeli relentless attacks and lack of fuel, leaving a population of 2.3 million without proper healthcare.

The international community says hospitals, which are protected under international law, must be protected.

The World Health Organization urged Israel to grant its staff access to the hospital, where it said a week-long siege and raids by Israeli forces had stopped them from helping patients.