Israel-Hamas war: Israeli special forces enter Gaza’s besieged Nasser Hospital

Israeli soldiers stormed Nasser Hospital overnight, forcing patients and staff members to evacuate the last major functional medical facility in southern Gaza.

Dr. Mohammad Harara, whom NBC News has been following at Nasser since December, joined an estimated 1 million displaced Gazans crammed in the southern border town of Rafah. But throughout the violence and upheaval today, he continued to treat the sick and the wounded.

Video shot today shows Harara helping pull a patient in a dark hoodie from a car, holding the young man’s head gently but firmly as the crew races him into a noisy and crowded tented field hospital.

“Mohammed, wake up! Wake up!” Harara repeatedly shouts as the young man is rushed into the hospital amid frantic activity. The doctor calls out for a stethoscope as he pats the chest of the unconscious figure.

Eventually the patient groans.

“You’re OK,” Harara says as the sounds of cries, moans and beeping monitors fill the crowded tent.

For weeks, Harara was one of five doctors who remained at the beleaguered Nasser Hospital caring for 850 patients. NBC News has spent dozens of hours with Harara as he does his rounds in wards brimming with patients, recording how he copes with the gravely injured, the grief-stricken and the terrified — all while surrounded by soldiers, tanks and fighting.

Read the full story here.

JERUSALEM — The families of two Palestinian American teenagers killed in separate but eerily similar incidents in the West Bank say investigators from the U.S. Embassy have visited their homes to look into the shootings.

Launching American investigations into the killings of Mohammad Khdour and Tawfic Abdel Jabbar reflects what appears to be a lack of confidence in the Israeli justice system to properly investigate the cases. Rights groups have long said Israeli investigations into killings of Palestinians rarely lead to prosecutions, and the State Department has called for an “expeditious” and “thorough” Israeli investigation into Abdel Jabbar’s killing.

Both shootings happened as the Biden administration signals a desire to crack down on settler violence in the volatile territory.

Khdour, who was born in Hollywood, Florida, was shot Saturday while he was driving with a cousin on a hillside in Biddu, the town just outside Jerusalem where Khdour had lived since age 2, relatives said.

The Israeli military referred questions to the Shin Bet internal security service, which did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S. Embassy officials visited the home and the scene of the shooting Thursday, taking pictures of the car Khdour was driving and the scene around it, Mohammad’s father said. He said the officials told the family they are preparing a report on the incident.

The U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs wrote on X that it was “devastated” by the killing and called for “a quick, thorough, and transparent investigation, including full accountability.”

The Gaza government condemned an Israeli military raid on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis today, accusing IDF forces of violating humanitarian law.

It accused the IDF in a statement of storming the hospital and threatening people inside, which "clearly prevented the crews from providing Medical and health service for hundreds of sick, wounded and displaced people, threatening their lives."

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari told NBC News that special forces entered the hospital following "credible intelligence" that hostages were being held inside. The IDF also said today that it arrested three people inside Nasser Hospital who the military alleged had terrorism ties. NBC News has not independently verified the IDF's statements.

"We have no intention of disrupting the hospital’s function," Hagari said in a public statement. "Rather, we provide aid and needed equipment. The only ones with an interest in turning hospitals into battlegrounds are Hamas terrorists."

Videos on social media, which NBC News verified using geolocation, showed tanks driving through a wall outside Nasser Hospital's complex.

More than half of the antisemitic incidents that were reported in the U.K. last year happened on or after Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, according to a report from Community Security Trust, a charity that protects British Jews from antisemitism.

Of the 4,103 incidents reported last year, 66% occurred after the war started. There was an overall 147% increase in reports of antisemitism from 2022 to 2023, according to the group.

The most common form of anti-Jewish rhetoric, the report said, involved references to "Israel, Palestine, the Hamas terror attack, or the subsequent war." Included in what the group considered to be antisemitic incidents were times the phrase "Free Palestine" were directed verbally or in writing at Jewish members of the community.

"Although not an inherently antisemitic statement, each of these cases were deemed as such because these words were used to abuse Jewish people or institutions simply because they were Jewish, or formed part of a larger outburst including explicitly anti-Jewish sentiments," the organization said.

Yair Yaakov, 59, has died in captivity months after he was abducted from kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, according to a statement from the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

His cause of death was not disclosed, and his body is still being held by Hamas in Gaza, the statement said. Yaakov's teenage sons, Or and Yagil, were also abducted from the kibbutz but were released during November's hostage exchange deal.

"Yair was a family man with a huge heart, always willing to help everyone," the forum statement said. "He was energetic and loved enjoying life — since childhood he enjoyed listening to music, sitting in the sun with a cold beer."

WASHINGTON — The U.S. recently conducted a cyberattack against an Iranian military ship that had been collecting intelligence on cargo vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, according to three U.S. officials.

The cyberattack, which occurred more than a week ago, was part of the Biden administration’s response to the drone attack by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan and wounded dozens of others late last month, the officials said.

The operation was intended to inhibit the Iranian ship’s ability to share intelligence with Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been firing missiles and drones at cargo ships in the Red Sea, the officials said. U.S. officials say Iran uses the ship to provide targeting information to the Houthis so their attacks on the ships can be more effective.

One of the U.S. officials with knowledge of the cyberattack said the operation was conducted on an Iranian ship named the MV Behshad. The other officials declined to disclose the ship’s name. 

U.S. officials typically do not disclose covert operations, including cyberattacks, and have not publicly released information about the one involving the suspected Iranian spy ship.

Read the full story here.

Dr. Mohammed Harara had no contact with his family for several weeks while he worked nonstop to save lives in the collapsing Gazan medical system.

“I can’t explain how I feel,” he told the NBC News crew who recorded the happy reunion. “Alhamdulillah [thank God], they are fine and they are still alive,” he added.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call today that he was "deeply concerned" about loss of civilian life in Gaza, according to a readout provided by his office.

Sunak also told Netanyahu he was concerned about the "potentially devastating humanitarian impact of a military incursion into Rafah." The priority must be focused on negotiating a humanitarian pause, according to Sunak, which would facilitate the safe release of hostages still in Gaza and the influx of aid into Gaza.

"He noted the importance of continuing to abide by International Humanitarian Law and protecting civilian infrastructure like hospitals and shelters," the readout said.

Other topics included easing restrictions on humanitarian supplies, and Sunak urged Israel to fully open the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing, as well as allow maritime aid deliveries through Ashdod.

"In the longer term, the UK continued to believe a viable two state solution was the best means to achieve lasting peace and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians," the readout said. "They agreed that Hamas can have no role in the future governance of Gaza."

Israel’s Ministry of Communications has approved the use of Starlink satellites in the country and in Gaza, months after Elon Musk said he’d support connectivity for aid organizations in the Palestinian enclave.

Musk made the announcement in a reply on X to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in October after she criticized communication blackouts in Gaza as “unacceptable.” Israeli officials shut Musk down at the time, alleging that the connectivity would be abused by Hamas militants.

According to a statement from Israel, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has approved the use of Starlink for a field hospital operated by the United Arab Emirates in Rafah. Additional organizations will need to be approved by the Israeli government individually in order to connect to the satellites.

“This is great and happy news. I thank the Starlink representatives for the substantive discussion and understanding regarding the Gaza Strip,” Karhi said in a statement. “The entry of Starlink into Israel will enable advanced satellite communication in both normal and emergency times.”

Gaza has gone through several communication blackouts since the start of the war on Oct. 7, creating even more difficult situations for many aid and medical organizations. The Palestine Red Crescent Society, for example, has said in the past that the blackouts impede its ability to dispatch ambulances to those in need.

GENEVA — Gaza will need a new “Marshall Plan” to recover from the conflict between Israel and Hamas, a U.N. trade body official said today, adding that the damage from the conflict so far amounted to around $20 billion.

Speaking on the sidelines of a U.N. meeting in Geneva, Richard Kozul-Wright, a director at trade body UNCTAD, said the damage was already four times that endured in Gaza during the seven-week war in 2014.

“We are talking about around $20 billion if it stops now,” he said.

Kozul-Wright said the estimate was based on satellite images and other information and that a more precise estimate would require researchers to enter Gaza.

The reconstruction will require a new “Marshall Plan,” he said, referring to the U.S. plan for Europe’s economic recovery after World War II.

UNCTAD already said in a report last month that it could take until the closing years of the century for Gaza’s economy to regain its pre-conflict size if hostilities in the Palestinian enclave were to cease immediately.

FBI Director Christopher Wray met with Israeli law enforcement and intelligence partners during an unannounced visit to Tel Aviv yesterday, according to a readout from the bureau today.

The discussions focused on the FBI’s work to protect U.S. interests both domestically and abroad, particularly in regard to the collaboration with Israeli officials on threats posed by Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Wray also expressed support for Israel in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

“The FBI’s partnership with our Israeli counterparts is longstanding, close, and robust, and I’m confident the closeness of our agencies contributed to our ability to move so quickly in response to these attacks, and to ensure our support is as seamless as possible,” Wray said.

GENEVA — The United Nations aid chief warned today of the possibility of a spillover of Palestinians amassed in Rafah into Egypt if Israel launches a military operation against the border town.

More than 1 million Palestinians are crammed into Rafah at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt. Many are living in tent camps and makeshift shelters after fleeing Israeli bombardments elsewhere in Gaza.

“The possibility of a military operation in Rafah, with the possibility of the (border) crossing closing down, with the possibility of spillover ... a sort of Egyptian nightmare ... is one that is right before our eyes,” Martin Griffiths told diplomats at the United Nations in Geneva.

He said the notion that the people of Gaza could evacuate to a safe place was an “illusion.”

“We must all hope that friends of Israel and those who care about Israel’s security give them good counsel at this moment,” Griffiths said.

TEL AVIV — Hostage families have blocked the road outside Israel’s defense ministry to call on Israeli leadership to continue negotiations with Hamas after talks in Cairo failed to produce a deal.

Horns blared as the families and supporters brought traffic to a halt outside the defense ministry, chanting “bring them home now,” “Biden do your job,” and “Bibi do your job!” Some demonstrators held signs that said: "Biden, please save us."

“Some people here in Israel think that we can trust the president of the United States more than the Israel prime minister," Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat is among the hostages held in Gaza, told NBC News.

“It’s very hard to trust anyone after October 7th, but I still think that the prime minister of Israel can make this tough decision, but the right decision to save the lives of these hostages," he said, calling for a deal. Already, he said, "time has run out for some of these hostages. Some hostages who were taken alive into Gaza will no longer return alive."

The demonstration comes amid mounting frustrations after talks in Cairo failed to delivered a deal for a cease-fire and to see hostages released.

TEL AVIV — A woman who released from Hamas' captivity and the families of those who remain held in Gaza gathered here tonight to protest after negotiations in Cairo failed to produce a new cease-fire and hostage deal.

Speaking at a news conference outside the Intelligence Heritage Center, Moran Stela Yanai, who was released by Hamas after 54 days in captivity, said she was freed "at the last moment before losing hope." She said "now is the time to act" to see other hostages freed as she accused Israeli leadership of failing to do enough to produce a deal in recent negotiations in Cairo.

“We call on the prime minister of Israel to do everything that he can to look at these hostages and to think of them as if they were his own and do everything in his power to bring them back,” Ruby Chen, the father of American Israeli hostage Itay Chen, said in a separate speech.

Speaking with NBC News, Chen said, “It feels like the U.S. wants a deal more than Israel does,” noting CIA Director William Burns’ participation in the negotiations. “We’ve gone all over the globe in order to bring the different parties to one place,” he said. “Even the head of the CIA has come to Cairo in order to negotiate on our behalf to bring the hostages out,” he said.

He said he feared that if no deal is reached soon, his son could be lost forever.

OXFORD, England — Hamas “cannot be eradicated” and the creation of a Palestinian state is an “existential necessity,” Oman’s foreign minister said today.

Speaking at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies in the U.K., Sayyid Badr Albusaidi said Palestinians were “condemned to a perpetual threat of destitution, annihilation and death” unless they get their own state.

“Hamas cannot be eradicated. So, if there is ever to be peace, the peacemakers will have to find a way to talk to them. And to listen,” he added.

An emergency international peace conference should be convened to discuss this, he said, adding that it should be attended by “a range of countries which is properly representative of the global majority.” He also called for reform of the United Nations Security Council.

During a briefing today, the spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is focused on the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack and that it was “not the time” to discuss recognition of a Palestinian state.

Eylon Levy made the remarks during a briefing today in which he was asked to comment on a Washington Post report that the U.S. is working on a postwar plan with some Arab states that would include the recognition of Palestine. Levy appeared to reject the report, referring to a Palestinian state as “gifts.”

“Now is not the time to be speaking about gifts for the Palestinian people at a time when the Palestinian Authority themselves have yet to even condemn the Oct. 7 massacre, and, on the contrary, have suggested in official statements that it didn’t happen or questioned it,” Levy said.

“Now is the time for victory, total victory against Hamas, and we will continue on the path to victory,” he continued.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society released a statement today condemning IDF allegations that the 20 people it arrested at Al-Amal Hospital in Gaza were “terrorists.”

According to a statement today, PRCS said that nine of its staff members were arrested along with nine elderly patients who were unable to evacuate earlier this month due to health and mobility issues. IDF forces raided Al-Amal Hospital last week, a PRCS facility in Khan Younis where the organization also has its headquarters.

“The PRCS believes that these accusations are only part of a series of excuses fabricated by the occupation forces to justify the siege, bombing, storming of hospitals and killing PRCS medical staff and others in the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

The PRCS accused Israel of violating the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, defaming medical staff in a “poor attempt to justify their commission of war crimes.”

After Israeli special forces raided Nasser Hospital, patients, staff and their families were forced to relocate to a building with “frightening conditions,” according to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.

“Israeli occupation forces force the administration of the Nasser Medical Complex to place 95 health personnel, 11 of their families, 191 patients, and 165 companions and displaced persons in the old Nasser building in harsh and frightening conditions, without food, without milk for the children, and severe water shortages,” Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said in a statement.

He said the hospital “is witnessing a disastrous and worrying situation” as medical capabilities and fuel dwindle. Fuel could run out in 24 hours, threatening the lives of six patients relying on industrial machines and three children.

The Israeli military said that the hospital raid was based on “credible intelligence” that Hamas held captives taken in the Oct. 7 attacks at the medical center and that bodies of Israeli hostages may be at the site.

Palestinians fleeing Khan Younis arrive in the southern city of Rafah today with their belongings fastened to the roof of a damaged car.

The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet released a statement today announcing the death of a man named Ahmed Gol, who Israeli authorities say was the commander of a Hamas battalion.

According to the joint statement, Gol is believed to have participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and to have held Israeli soldier Noa Marciano hostage. NBC News has not independently verified the allegations against Gol.

Marciano, 19, was found dead in Gaza in November and her body was recovered by the IDF from a structure adjacent to Al-Shifa Hospital, in northern Gaza, the military said.

Hamas reacted to news out of Israel today that the country’s governing body, the Knesset, gave preliminary approval to a law that would ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

The bill would ban UNRWA “from operating within Israel’s sovereign territory, and to instruct the Israel Police to take action to enforce this prohibition,” according to the Knesset’s English-language website. Hamas said it rejects the bill and called on the international community to condemn it as “an infringement on the rights of our Palestinian people.”

Hamas went on to accuse Israel of “aiming to end the work of the agency that represents an international witness to the suffering of our people and their forced displacement from their land, and to their right to return to it.”

Israeli officials have long been critical of UNRWA’s work, which supports Palestinians in the occupied territories as well as refugees in other countries in the region. Last month, Israel accused a dozen UNRWA staff members of having ties to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which the United Nations is investigating.

The IDF said today that it killed Hezbollah commander Ali Muhammad al-Debs, along with his deputy commander, Ibrahim Issa, in a strike in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon yesterday.

Hezbollah announced that five of its members were killed yesterday, including al-Debs and Issa, without detailing the circumstances of their deaths. Al-Debs is accused of planning an attack in Israel that occurred in March of last year as well as leading other attacks on Israel since the start of the war.

The IDF said it hit a “military structure” in Nabatieh, but Lebanese state news reported it was a residential building hit. A photographer with Agence France-Presse also said that it was a three-story residential building that was struck.

Lebanese state news reported that at least five members of the Berjawi family were killed: Hussein Ahmad Daher Berjawi, his sister Fatima, his daughters Amani and Zeinab, as well as his grandson Mahmoud. His wife and niece were missing, according to state news. A young boy, Hussein, was found alive in the rubble after four hours of searching. His father was among several wounded who were taken to the hospital.

TEL AVIV — The situation at the main hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis is deteriorating quickly, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement today.

“Our staff reported a chaotic situation, with an undetermined number of people killed and injured,” it said, adding that some of its staff had been forced to flee the Nasser Hospital, “leaving patients behind.”

One worker was detained and another remained unaccounted for, the statement added.

Despite reassurances from Israeli forces that staff and patients could stay at the facility, the statement said that the hospital had been shelled in the early hours of the morning.

Palestinian women sew diapers in Rafah today.

Holding the young man’s head, Dr. Mohammad Harara helped to pull him from a car today before carrying him into a tent where patients were being treated outside a hospital in Rafah.

“Wake up, wake up,” Harara shouted as he carried the young man into the makeshift facility, moans and cries of injured patients audible.

Harara was among those forced to flee the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, but was already back treating patients at the Kuwait Speciality Hospital in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1 million people are sheltering ahead of an expected Israeli ground assault.

Harara, who has been filmed on multiple occasions by NBC News, said that some of his colleagues at the Nasser Hospital had been arrested. Some of the patients, like the one he was treating, had been transferred by car, “because we don’t have ambulances to take them to another hospital,” he said.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said today on X that he told his American counterpart Lloyd Austin that his country would not tolerate attacks from the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.

Gallant said Israel will ensure its security along the northern border “via diplomatic or military means.”

He added that he had discussed the Israeli military’s activities in the Gaza Strip and mentioned an operation in the enclave’s southernmost city of Rafah that had secured the release of two hostages.

Cash woes are worsening for the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees after a number of its donors suspended funding, its commissioner general said today.

“We will hit a negative cashflow as from March and then it will be accelerated in April unless this frozen contribution is unlocked,” Philippe Lazzarini told Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ, referring to a situation when an organization has more expenditure than revenue.

Palestinian families who fled their homes due to Israeli advances in the Gaza Strip are struggling with difficult living conditions in makeshift tents while trying to provide water and food for their children.

At a temporary encampment in Rafah, southern Gaza, today, people gathered outside tents as shortages of basic necessities continue for displaced civilians.

Hezbollah said today that Israel would pay “the price” for killing 10 people including five children in southern Lebanon, the deadliest day for Lebanese civilians in four months of hostilities.

An Israeli strike killed seven people in the city of Nabatieh late yesterday including three children, sources in Lebanon said. It followed an earlier attack that killed a woman and her two children in the village of al-Sawana at the border.

“The enemy will pay the price for these crimes,” Hezbollah politician Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters. “The resistance will continue to practice its legitimate right to defend its people.”

Four strikes were launched against targets in parts of Yemen, U.S. Central Command said on X today.

Centcom said it hit anti-ship cruise missiles, drones and one explosive unmanned surface vessel “that were prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea,” in seven strikes yesterday.

It added that they posed “an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels.”

The strikes “will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy and merchant vessels,” the post added.

Israeli forces have “apprehended” a number of suspects in their raid on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the country’s military said in a statement.

Calling the assault a “precise and limited” operation, the Israel Defense Forces said its goal was to reach Hamas operatives, including individuals suspected of involvement in the Oct. 7 attacks.

The IDF said it had contacted the director the hospital on Tuesday calling for the “immediate cessation of all Hamas terrorist activity from within the hospital and the immediate evacuation of all Hamas terrorists” from the medical center.

NBC News was not immediately able to independently verify the IDF’s account.

Israeli special forces entered the main hospital in southern Gaza, the country’s military said today, raiding a site where thousands of Palestinians had sought shelter.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, told NBC News that it had “credible intelligence from a number of sources, including from released hostages, indicating that Hamas held hostages at the Nasser Hospital,” in Khan Younis.

He added that the “sensitive operation was prepared with precision and is being conducted by IDF special forces who underwent specified training.”

Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry said in a separate statement on Telegram that Israeli forces had targeted the facility’s ambulance headquarters and tents housing displaced people on the site. He added that intensive care patients were being kept without medical staff inside the hospital.

The prime ministers of Australia, Canada and New Zealand called for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, saying Israel’s planned military offensive in the city of Rafah would be “catastrophic.”

“We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path. There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go,” the three leaders said today in a joint statement, noting that the 1.5 million Palestinians taking refuge in the area include many of their own citizens.

Israel is obligated to protect civilians, ensure the delivery of basic services and provide essential humanitarian assistance, they said, citing a ruling last month by the International Court of Justice in a genocide case brought by South Africa.

They added that any cease-fire “cannot be one-sided,” and that Hamas must also lay down its arms and immediately release all remaining hostages.

A doctor in Rafah told NBC News that she works 24/7 taking care of patients injured by the ongoing attacks from Israel and that the toll is “more than catastrophic.”

“The situation is getting worse day after day because of the Israeli attacks,” Dr. Noor Alwhidi at Kuwait Hospital told NBC News.

Alwhidi said that the hospital deals with “hundreds of patients” after every Israeli attack and that most injuries are critical.

“Most of the patients are children, babies, women. They are bombing them and killing them,” she said, adding there are more than 1 million people displaced in the area.

Israeli soldiers search a building at an undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip during ongoing ground operations by IDF forces today.

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