Israel has ordered people in parts of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, to evacuate the area after the military switched focus from the north of the enclave to the south. Thousands of people here have already been displaced at least once, having fled the north when Israel first launched its assault.
The Israeli government and military say they are hunting Hamas fighters in a bid to gut the militant group after its Oct. 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 240 kidnapped.
More than 26,000 people have been killed across Gaza, most of whom are women and children, according to local authorities, whose figures United States and United Nations officials say are accurate.
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In Nasser Hospital, “death is everywhere,” Harara said on a recent day this month, when the Israel Defense Forces began to intensify its assault on Khan Younis.
“The situation here is miserable and the smell of death is everywhere,” he told NBC News.
“I feel like the Al-Shifa Hospital scenario is repeating itself,” Harara added, referring to the Gaza City hospital stormed by Israeli troops in November, provoking international shock and alarm.
Israel says Hamas uses hospitals, including Al-Shifa, as militant bases, something Hamas and hospital staff deny. A U.S. intelligence assessment found that Al-Shifa was used to store some weaponry and house command infrastructure.
Harara used to work at that hospital until he was forced to flee. His family is currently in Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, but he cannot make the journey to visit them “because of the siege,” he said.
The corridors and rooms in Nasser Hospital are strewn with people, some in well-worn clothes, others in hastily tied medical gowns. Many of the injured are frantic, wide-eyed; others stare vacantly ahead. All await amid a clamor of shouts and groans, punctuated by the metronome beep of hospital machines and the rumblings of bombs and heavy gunfire nearby.
On a recent day this month,…
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