The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warns of the potentially devastating repercussions of forcing Naser Medical Complex out of service, which is the last remaining major hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, providing healthcare to more than 600,000 residents amid the total collapse of the healthcare system across the Strip.  PCHR views the targeting of this critical facility or forcing its evacuation under military threat as a crime against the civilian population, risking the halt of emergency healthcare services to thousands of wounded and sick individuals.  The hospital currently operates at its maximum capacity, houses an intensive care unit with 51 patients and receives emergency cases in its hallways amid an intensified Israeli military offensive and acute shortage of medicine, medical supplies and fuel.

This follows orders issued by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on 12 June 2025 to evacuate residential neighborhoods surrounding Naser Medical Complex in Khan Younis,¹ amid reports of Israeli tanks and soldiers stationed in proximity.  This raises concerns about a potential raid or bombing of the hospital- similar to previous attacks on this complex and other hospitals in the northern and southern Gaza Strip.  PCHR emphasizes targeting Naser Medical Complex, which has been recently rehabilitated in February 2024 following earlier partial destruction, reflects Israel’s deliberate policy to erasing what remains of the healthcare infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip, especially after the destruction of the Gaza European Hospital. Naser Medical Complex is the only remaining hospital in the southern Gaza Strip providing specialized medical services such as dialysis, neonatal incubators, intensive care, surgeries and cancer treatment.  The suspension of such services amounts to a deliberate killing of patients.²  Moreover, the forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands of displaced people sheltering around the hospital and nearby shelters will exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe and push them towards overcrowded and underserved areas in western Khan Younis amid no safe haven across the whole Gaza Strip.

In parallel, the Israeli violations are escalating drastically, targeting essential aspects of life, most notably electricity, communications and internet networks. The Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said that the main fiber-optic route was completely destroyed, causing a total communications and internet blackout across the whole Gaza Strip.³  According to follow-up by PCHR’s field researchers, this cutoff had led to the digital isolation of Gaza, paralyzing medical teams’ ability to coordinate and respond and deprives people of emergency and ambulance services.  This comes amid a worsening fuel crisis that threatens to shut down generators, particularly in Naser, al-Shifa and Al-Ahli Al-Araby hospitals as IOF continues to block the entry of fuel supplies and spare parts necessary for the reparation and operation of generators. This crisis unfolds under a strangulating siege ongoing for 3 months, widespread depletion of medicines, and near-total collapse of surgical and intensive care services.

PCHR emphasizes the crimes committed the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip, including widespread forced displacement, deliberate and recurrent attacks on hospitals, and systematic destruction of the humanitarian and healthcare infrastructure, constitute grave breaches of the international humanitarian law, foremost of which Geneva conventions.  The latter prohibit attacks on medical facilities, obstruction of their operations, deliberate starvation of civilians and denial of medical care.  Moreover, the mass forced displacements alongside the destruction of hospitals and infrastructure leaves no doubt that Israel persists in its crime of genocide against the people of Gaza through fulfilling the mental and physical elements of the crime- the intent and act- as defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention and Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

PCHR reiterates its urgent call on the international community, particularly the United Nations and High Contracting Parties to the Four Geneva Conventions, to take immediate and tangible action to stop the Israeli crimes and ensure the protection of hospitals, medical personnel and civilians in the Gaza Strip.  Immediate measures must be taken to allow the immediate entry of fuel and medical supplies and uphold international accountability for the crimes committed against more than 2 million Palestinians living in the besieged Gaza Strip.  PCHR stresses once again that silence and inaction in such crucial times means complicity in the ongoing and relentless crime of genocide.

1. COGAT’s Official Page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/12LNow9DG7D/ ↩︎
2. Palestinian Ministry of Health, press statement: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19EjVY5hes/ ↩︎
3. Al-Jazeera News Channel Website and Reuters Agency: https://aja.ws/ia5hmz – https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-says-full-internet-blackout-gaza-paralyzing-aid-operations-2025-06-12/ ↩︎