Hamas using Gaza’s Nasser Hospital to interrogate, torture Palestinians

Hamas is using Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, the southern Gaza Strip, to conduct security interrogations and torture as the terrorist organization seeks to maintain control over Gaza’s population, Israeli authorities said on Thursday.

According to information released by the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), Hamas’s internal security and military intelligence services are conducting interrogations on the second floor of the hospital’s outpatient clinic.

The statement said Hamas is exploiting the hospital “as a center of power regardless of its medical function, for the purpose of interrogations, torture and extortion.”

Nasser Hospital remains “a central military facility for the Hamas terrorist organization in the southern Gaza Strip,” with Hamas operatives, including masked members, maintaining a presence in various parts of the complex, the agencies said.

Hamas’s presence exposes patients and medical staff to its activities, creating fear and interfering with the hospital’s civilian functions, they added.

According to the statement, another building currently used for interrogations had previously housed hospital offices, a cafeteria and later a house of prayer.

The Israeli agencies have previously cited Hamas “military” activity at the hospital compound. In May 2025, Israel struck terrorists in a command-and-control center located inside the hospital compound. Ismail Barhoum, a member of the Hamas politburo and the terrorist group’s financial chief, was killed in a separate strike on the compound that year.

Eighty-five percent of Gaza’s hospitals have been used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad for terrorism, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

As reported by The Press Service of Israel in 2023, Hamas made extensive use of the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Strip’s largest medical center. Hamas fired rockets from its compound, hid hostages inside the hospital, tortured collaborators and dug tunnel shafts.

Other Palestinians told Israeli interrogators Hamas deeply embedded itself in the Palestinian Red Crescent Society to use hospitals and clinics as a base for attacks.