Patients at a hospital in Gaza raided by the Israel military are “safe”, an IDF spokesman has claimed.
The operation has killed one patient and has injured at least six others, according to the Gaza authorities.
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said the reason that Israeli special forces had gone into the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis was the “extensive use of hospitals” by Hamas as “their hubs of operation”.
Israel called for the hospital to evacuate before it began its operation at 7am today and says it is providing “safe passage” for the thousands being treated and sheltering there.
Lt Col Lerner claimed: “The patients and the medical staff in the hospital are safe, they’re not the reason we’re going there.”
He added the IDF had “found some suspects who are involved in the 7 October massacre”, but was still searching for “hostages” and “potential bodies”.
Pressed by Niall Peterson on where ill and vulnerable hospital patients can be moved to, he said: “We can’t not defend our people because Hamas is hiding behind the Palestinians of Gaza.”
Asked about the potential opening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt to deal with evacuated Palestinians in the south of Gaza, he said that was a matter for the Egyptians.
And on IDF intelligence failures ahead of the 7 October massacre, he said the war was being fought on “multiple fronts”, but as time goes on the military would undoubtedly be “held accountable by the people of Israel”.
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