5 days ago
Inside Gaza's last working hospital lies a shadow of Hamas control
The tracer bullets are unmistakable as they streak across the otherwise dark forecourt of Gaza's Nasser hospital, with the deafening sound of automatic gunfire overhead.
Around the corner, several white four-by-four vehicles are in flames, charring the building's walls.
Photos later emerged revealing devastation inside one of the Strip's last functioning medical facilities, with the glass screen above the reception desk shattered by bullets.
The gunfight is believed to have taken place between Hamas and one of southern Gaza's powerful armed families, the so-called 'clans'.
It is believed that the terror group summarily executed a member of the Barbakh clan, whose fighters then chased the Hamas members into the hospital, looking for revenge.
One report said six Hamas terrorists were killed in the fight.
Tension – and indeed bloodshed – between Hamas and the southern clans has become increasingly common in recent weeks as both scrap for control over meagre aid supplies.
However, the fact that the Barbakh gunmen's first instinct was to look for their enemy in the grounds of a working hospital is arguably significant.
Evidence has emerged in recent months of Hamas and affiliated groups in the medical facility.
Sources inside Gaza have also alleged that the groups use the hospital for torture, filming some of the interrogation videos that they have published in the last month inside the medical complex itself.
It comes as the hospital remains a crucial lifeline for Gazans caught in Israeli airstrikes, which the IDF says are targeting Hamas officials.
Doctors have described harrowing scenes of wards overwhelmed with patients presenting with trauma injuries.
However, with Hamas violence against civilians also evident in the Strip, there is mounting evidence that Hamas, when it chooses, exercises control over treatment decisions in the hospital, effectively deciding who lives and dies.
One video seen by The Telegraph shows a public beating, staged by Hamas, of individuals alleged to have stolen food.
Amid the screams of pain, a fighter can clearly be seen spray painting – in Hamas green – the Arabic word for thief on one of the tortured men's naked backs.
One source said: 'This is to prevent him receiving treatment if he goes to the hospital.'
When the group fired on a bus full of Palestinian staff going to work at one of the new US-backed aid centres earlier in June, witnesses who spoke to The Telegraph said the group then prevented doctors at Nasser from treating the survivors.
This is believed to have raised the death toll from eight to 12.
In another incident in June, the family of a man who had been badly tortured for alleged opposition to Hamas turned up at the Nasser hospital to complain that he was being refused treatment.
Hamas arrived and allegedly killed five of them.
Numerous Palestinian sources have since told The Telegraph that Hamas uses the hospital as a base where the terrorists hide from the families they attack.
One source with first-hand experience of the hospital said: 'They hide among patients, medical staff and hospital facilities without any responsibility for endangering patients and medical staff.'
The sources who gave information to The Telegraph did not want to be named for fear of reprisals.
Israel has long claimed that the hospital is used as a military command and control centre. However, The Telegraph has not seen evidence to verify this claim.
The IDF has launched a number of controversial airstrikes on the hospital with that justification since the start of the war, one of which was caught during a live TV news broadcast.
On that occasion in May, a munition was targeted at a precise room in an upper storey of the building.
The IDF says their strikes have been precise and aimed at Hamas militants, although NGOs have said innocent civilians were killed.
Attacking a hospital can be prosecuted as a war crime, as can using civilians as a human shield, a charge routinely levelled against Hamas.
Whatever else is taking place there, the Nasser hospital is currently providing a medical lifeline to the people of southern Gaza.
Only last week, the entire facility was described as a 'trauma ward' given the number of casualties coming in from shootings related to the new US-backed aid distribution centres.
However, following the battle on June 26, some Gazans have begun to complain openly on social media about Hamas's presence in the hospital.
One said the group has taken to sending letters to its opponents, summoning them for questioning at the site.
The Telegraph has seen a copy of a document on social media that activists say is one of these summons. It is addressed from the interior ministry in Khan Younis. It instructs the recipient, whose name is blanked out, to 'police investigations department, Nasser'. It also bears the stamp of the Gaza interior ministry. A photo of the document was posted on a free Gaza Telegram account.
A photograph of a different document, dated 2024, which was posted on a different social media channel, instructs a named individual to present themselves at the 'Nasser Medical Centre'.
A source said that some letters suggest that coming to the hospital would result in 'free food parcels', exploiting people's need and then luring them into punishment or investigation.
They alleged: 'It's become a tool for controlling aspects of life in Khan Younis.'
Another pointed to the white off-road vehicles pictured outside the hospital, alleging that they are the same as used during the hostage handover ceremonies in January and February. However, it was not possible to verify this claim.
In April, Dr Mohammed Saqer, the director of nursing at the site, posted on social media that armed men had come to his office and directly threatened him.
He also showed a photograph of a piece of paper warning him that he had 'crossed the red line… wait'.
That was signed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terror group allied to Hamas.
The battle from a fortnight ago has caused a ripple effect of retaliatory violence in an area that is already traumatised by 21 months of war.
Hamas subsequently issued a wanted list of those they claimed were responsible for the attack, demanding that they be turned in within 24 hours.
At least one video purporting to show the murder of a man allegedly involved in the battle has been circulated online by prominent pro-Hamas accounts.
Israel is accused of laying siege to various hospitals in the Strip, and in some cases firing on people leaving.
According to the World Health Organisation, 94 per cent of hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.
At Nasser hospital, doctors warned on Friday of an impending disaster because of a shortage of fuel. It was forced to stop admitting patients the previous day after Israeli tanks advanced to within 200 metres of the complex.
Dr Victoria Rose, a senior plastic surgeon from London, recently completed a deployment at the Nasser hospital.
She said she saw dozens of dead bodies arrive with gunshot wounds following mass shootings at aid stations. In an interview with the New York Times, she said she had seen an increase in patients with unsurvivable burns or severe blast injuries from Israeli bombs, and that the hospital was struggling to cope with the stream of traumatic injuries.
