GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) has issued an urgent warning about the potentially catastrophic consequences of taking Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza out of service.
This facility, one of the last major functioning hospitals in the southern part of the Strip, serves more than 600,000 residents amid the total collapse of the health system in the rest of Gaza.
In a statement released on Friday, the PCHR described the threat to this vital facility, whether through direct targeting or forced evacuation under military threat, as a crime against civilians. It would result in the loss of emergency medical care for thousands of wounded and ill Palestinians.
The hospital is currently operating at full capacity, with over 51 patients in intensive care and emergency cases overflowing into the corridors, all while suffering from severe shortages of medicine, equipment, and fuel.
This warning comes after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Thursday for residential neighborhoods surrounding the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis. Reports indicate that Israeli tanks and soldiers have taken positions dangerously close to the hospital, raising fears of an imminent assault or bombing, similar to previous attacks on this and other medical facilities across Gaza.
The center emphasized that targeting Nasser, recently rehabilitated after partial destruction in February 2024, demonstrates a clear Israeli intent to eliminate all remaining health infrastructure in southern Gaza, especially following the destruction of the European Gaza Hospital.
Nasser Medical Complex is the only hospital in southern Gaza providing specialized services such as dialysis, neonatal care, intensive care, surgeries, and cancer treatment. Disrupting these services amounts to a death sentence for hundreds of patients.
The forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of displaced persons sheltering around the hospital and nearby centers only worsens the catastrophe. Civilians are again being pushed toward overcrowded and unsafe areas in western Khan Yunis, with no safe haven left in the entire Gaza Strip.
Simultaneously, Israel’s assaults on critical life-sustaining infrastructure continue. The Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority confirmed the total destruction of the last fiber-optic line in Gaza, resulting in a complete blackout of communication and internet services. This digital isolation severely hampers medical teams’ ability to coordinate responses and leaves civilians unable to call for ambulances or emergency assistance.
Compounding the crisis, Gaza is running out of fuel, threatening to shut down hospital generators in facilities like Nasser, Shifa, and Al-Ahli hospitals. Despite the life-threatening emergency, Israeli authorities continue to block the entry of fuel and spare parts, leaving hospitals in a state of collapse after more than three months of siege-induced shortages of medicine and surgical capabilities.
The PCHR emphasized that these systematic attacks—including mass displacement, repeated targeting of hospitals, and destruction of Gaza’s humanitarian infrastructure—constitute grave breaches of international humanitarian law, particularly the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit targeting medical facilities or impeding their work. They also criminalize the use of starvation and denial of healthcare as weapons of war.
According to the statement, the scale and consistency of forced evacuations and the destruction of medical infrastructure provide clear evidence of Israel’s intent to commit genocide, as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The center renewed its urgent appeal to the international community, particularly the United Nations and the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, to act immediately and decisively to halt Israeli crimes and ensure the protection of hospitals, medical personnel, and civilians in Gaza.
It also called for practical steps to guarantee the entry of fuel and urgent medical supplies and to ensure accountability for crimes committed against more than two million people in the besieged enclave. The center stressed that continued silence and inaction at this critical moment equate to complicity in an ongoing, unrelenting genocide.
