ISRAELI forces stormed the main hospital in southern Gaza today, hours after Israeli fire killed a patient and wounded six others inside the complex. 

The latest Israeli raid on a hospital came a day after the army ordered the evacuation of thousands of displaced people who had taken shelter at Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis, the focus of Israel’s offensive against Hamas in recent weeks. 

The military said that it had “credible intelligence” that Hamas had held hostages at the hospital and that the remains of hostages might still be inside. 

Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian structures to shield its fighters.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court says it is a war crime for combatants to “intentionally direct attacks against hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said that Israel had launched a “massive incursion” with heavy shooting that wounded displaced people still sheltering there. 

He said that the military had ordered medics to move all patients into an older building that was not properly equipped for their treatment.

“Many cannot evacuate, such as those with lower limb amputations, severe burns, or the elderly,” he said in an interview with the Al Jazeera network.

Separately, Israeli launched air strikes in southern Lebanon for a second day after killing 10 civilians and three Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday in response to a rocket attack that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded several others.

It was the deadliest exchange of fire along the border since the start of the Israel-Gaza war. Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire on a daily basis, raising the risks of a broader conflict.

Hezbollah has not claimed Wednesday’s rocket attack, but Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, a senior member of the group, said it is “prepared for the possibility of expanding the war” and would meet “escalation with escalation, displacement with displacement and destruction with destruction.”

The war began when Hamas staged a surprise attack on October 7 during which some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken hostage. 

More than 100 of the captives were freed during a ceasefire last year in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel’s retaliation has killed more than 28,663 Palestinians, 80 per cent of the population have fled their homes and a quarter are starving amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe. 

Large areas in northern Gaza, the first target of the Israeli assault, have been completely destroyed.