Nasser Medical Complex: Southern Gaza's Main Hospital, Explained

Nasser Medical Complex, also called Nasser Hospital, is the main public hospital in Khan Younis and the main referral hospital for the southern Gaza Strip. The World Health Organization (WHO) has described it as a 300-bed hospital and, in June 2025, as "the most important referral hospital left in Gaza."

Since October 2023 it has been besieged, raided, put out of service, reopened, struck and repeatedly pushed far past its capacity. This page explains what the hospital is and gives a dated timeline from WHO, the UN and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), ending with what we can verify about its status as of 2 October 2026. Hospital conditions in Gaza change quickly, so every statement here carries its date.

What and where is Nasser Medical Complex?

The complex stands in the city of Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. It is a public hospital and a referral hospital, meaning smaller hospitals, clinics and field hospitals send it the patients they cannot treat themselves.

WHO lists the services that depend on it and its neighbor, Al-Amal Hospital: surgery, intensive care, a blood bank and transfusion services, cancer care and dialysis. In January 2026 Nasser had the largest dialysis caseload WHO recorded in Gaza, with 217 patients on 34 machines (see our guide to dialysis in Gaza).

Its role grew as other hospitals closed. In July 2024 MSF called it "the last tertiary hospital in south Gaza" and noted that it was also where surrounding field hospitals sterilized their equipment. In June 2025 WHO said Nasser and Al-Amal were the last two functioning public hospitals in Khan Younis, and that losing both would remove 490 beds.

Timeline: Nasser Hospital since October 2023

These are the main events documented by WHO, UN bodies and MSF. It is not a complete record.

• 14 February 2024: WHO said the hospital became non-functional following a military raid that came after a week-long siege. It had no electricity or running water, and its large medical warehouse had burned down.
• 18 and 19 February 2024: WHO, the Palestine Red Crescent Society and OCHA moved 32 critical patients, including two children, to other hospitals. About 130 patients and at least 15 doctors and nurses remained inside. WHO said at least five patients had reportedly died in intensive care before transfers were possible.
• April 2024: The UN human rights office said 283 bodies had been recovered at the hospital, 42 of them identified, and the UN human rights chief called for independent investigations.
• July 2024: With the European Gaza Hospital shut after evacuation orders, MSF said every department at Nasser was above bed capacity. The pediatric department had 56 beds and received some 100 patients on 3 July.
• June 2025: WHO called for urgent protection of the hospital, which lay within or just outside a newly announced evacuation zone, and said it was running at 180% over its bed capacity.
• 3 July 2025: WHO staff described the 300-bed hospital as "a large-scale trauma ward" caring for over 700 patients. Its director said it had 12 intensive care beds and received about 150 injured people a day.
• 25 August 2025: Israeli strikes hit the hospital. The UN Secretary-General condemned the killing of civilians, medical personnel and journalists there and called for a prompt and impartial investigation.
• January and February 2026: MSF suspended its non-critical work at Nasser from 20 January, saying its staff had seen armed men in the compound. A hospital doctor and Hamas denied this, the Israeli military said the hospital was being used by Hamas, and MSF said it did not have sufficient evidence to conclude the hospital was being used for military purposes, CBC News reported.

What is the status of Nasser Medical Complex now?

As of late September 2026, Nasser Medical Complex is open and treating patients, but it is not fully functional. No hospital in Gaza is. On 24 September 2026 the WHO Director-General said only 19 of Gaza's 36 hospitals were functioning even partially, and none fully.

The most recent reports we could verify are these. OCHA's situation report for 25 September 2026 says UNICEF, WHO and UNFPA have launched a pilot newborn-care program (intermittent kangaroo mother care) at the complex. On 27 September 2026, The National reported the coordinator of the Palestinian NGOs Network in Gaza as saying that generators had stopped working at several hospitals, Nasser among them, for lack of spare parts and engine oil. And from 16 September 2026, Gaza's Ministry of Health and its partners shifted to emergency operating modes across the health system, prioritizing lifesaving care and cutting back routine services, according to OCHA.

For the wider picture, see our regularly updated guide to how many hospitals are functioning in Gaza.

Which medical supplies are Gaza's hospitals short of?

WHO's representative in the occupied Palestinian territory said in May 2026 that critical shortages of medical supplies were one of the key reasons health facilities were not functioning. She named laboratory equipment, reagents, oxygen concentrators and orthopedic items as held up outside Gaza, and described them as "not luxury items."

In September 2026 the WHO Director-General said essential medicines, diagnostics, equipment and fuel all remained critically short. At Nasser itself, doctors told WHO in July 2025 that they lacked the antiviral and antibiotic drugs needed to treat meningitis, and MSF reported in July 2024 that its teams there were running on emergency stocks.

Fuel counts as a medical supply in practice. With the electricity grid down, intensive care units, operating theaters, dialysis machines and oxygen all run on generators.

What makes quality medical supplies, and good donations?

People searching for quality medical supplies for a hospital in crisis often want to know whether sending medicines helps. WHO's Guidelines for Medicine Donations set out how donated supplies should be quality-assured. They rest on four principles: a donation should benefit the recipient as much as possible and be based on an expressed need; it should respect the recipient's wishes and authority; donor and recipient should plan it together; and there should be no double standard in quality.

In practice the guidelines say:

• Medicines should come from a quality-assured source and meet quality standards in both the donor and the recipient country.
• Nothing that has been returned by patients or handed out as free samples should be donated.
• Medicines should generally have at least one year of shelf life left when they arrive.
• Labels should be in a language local health workers understand and show the generic name, strength, batch number and expiry date.
• Unsolicited donations should not be sent, because they can lead to overstocking and to medicines expiring unused.

How to help hospitals in Gaza

For these reasons, individuals cannot usefully post medicines to Gaza. Medical supplies reach hospitals there mainly through WHO, UN agencies and established medical organizations, and everything must pass through controlled crossings. Giving money to an organization that can buy what has actually been requested is the practical route; our guide to donating to Gaza safely lists the checks to run first.

Fight for Palestine does not run hospitals and does not supply Nasser Medical Complex. We raise funds for emergency aid delivered through local partner teams, including medical aid, food, clean water and shelter. For patients who need care that no hospital in Gaza can provide, see our guide to medical evacuations.