CNN
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Four doctors were killed at Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza on Friday after Israeli forces stormed the compound, killing and wounding dozens in the surrounding area, witnesses told CNN.
The Israeli military also evacuated medical workers and patients from the facility and destroyed vital medical supplies, according to a statement from the hospital’s director, Dr. Hassam Abu Saifia.
Early Friday morning, the Israeli military sent two plainclothes messengers to the hospital and told people via megaphone to evacuate, Abu Saifia added. Abu Saifiya added that in the two-hour raid, the military detained “a large number” of young people, including medical workers and displaced Palestinians.
Abu Saifia said Israeli quadcopters fired “heavy direct fire” as military vehicles surrounded the facility, corralling patients, refugees and medical workers in a courtyard, and at a checkpoint heading south to Gaza City. He recalled that he was forcibly taken away.
“Initially, there were a series of airstrikes on the north and west sides of the hospital, which resulted in heavy direct fire,” Abu Saifiya said in a statement on Friday. “They approached me and ordered us to evacuate all patients, refugees and medical staff, gather everyone in the hospital courtyard and forcibly take them to a checkpoint.
“I was shocked to see hundreds of bodies and injured people on the streets around the hospital this morning,” the doctor added. “The situation in northern Gaza, especially near Kamal Adwan Hospital, is catastrophic.”
Abu Saifiya said members of the Indonesian medical team, the only team operating in Kamal Adwan, were among those forced to leave and not allowed to return.
Hours later, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from one of the last remaining functioning facilities in northern Gaza. Abu Saifia added that when hospital staff and patients left the facility, they found hundreds of bodies and injured people lining the surrounding streets.
Photos posted by Abu Saifiya on social media showed at least 17 bodies wrapped in cloth lying in the hospital courtyard. A further 20 people were injured and “require urgent treatment”. Abu Saifiya told CNN that Israeli forces severely damaged the oxygen generator overnight and that the hospital now has only two “inexperienced” surgeons capable of performing life-saving procedures.
In a statement to CNN, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied any attack or operation inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, saying instead that its forces fought “terrorist infrastructure and terrorists” in the nearby Jabaliya area.
“IDF forces continue to operate against terrorist infrastructure and terrorists in the Jabaliya area, including areas adjacent to Kamal Adwan Hospital,” the newspaper said. “At the same time, in recent weeks, efforts have been underway in coordination with international organizations to transfer patients, companions and medical staff to other hospitals operating in the Gaza Strip.”
The statement added that the IDF is “in continuous contact” with Kamal Adwan to provide supplies and equipment. According to COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages Palestinian territory policy and the flow of aid to the Palestinian territories, 161 aid trucks entered Gaza on December 4.
According to UN officials, no formal evacuation orders were issued prior to the attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital. “People started climbing the walls to escape, and this panic led to Israeli shelling,” Rick Pieperkorn, the UN health agency representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said on Friday.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly accused Israel of subjecting residents of some areas of northern Gaza to displacement and starvation. Since October 2023, 58% of 273 missions led by the United Nations World Health Organization have been rejected, canceled or thwarted, the agency announced on Friday.
“Murder and violence in all its forms”
Friday’s attack was the second by Israeli forces since it launched an invasion of three cities in northern Gaza on October 5, destroying entire streets, causing severe hunger and forcing emergency services to flee. was unable to rescue those injured in the onslaught.
The Israeli military said the attack targeted a new Hamas presence. According to the Gaza Government Media Office (GMO), more than 3,700 Palestinians were killed. GMO announced Monday that another 10,000 people were injured.
At least 30 people were killed overnight in Israeli bombing of homes around Kamal Adwan, according to Munir al-Burush, head of the Gaza Ministry of Health.
CNN footage from Kamal Adwan Hospital on Friday shows a huge orange flame illuminating a pile of rubble in a courtyard. Inside the facility, medical workers cared for injured Palestinians, including young children. Many were groaning in pain from their wounds, and some were lying motionless on the floor.
Other footage taken outside the hospital showed dozens of men looking around helplessly and trying to lift injured people piled up under a thick layer of rubble.
US State Department denies allegations of genocide in Gaza
Abu Saifia told CNN that an Israeli drone struck and killed a 16-year-old boy in a separate attack Thursday as he entered a hospital’s X-ray department in a wheelchair. Abu Saifiya said the teenager, Mahmoud Abu al-Aish, was driven to the facility by his sister, who is a nurse at the hospital. Another man in his 30s also died.
CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment on Abu Saifia’s claims.
At least 1,050 medical workers have been killed since Israel began the war in Gaza after the Hamas-led attack on October 7, according to the Health Ministry in Ramallah. The Israeli military launched a new invasion of three cities in northern Gaza on October 5, saying it was targeting Hamas’ new presence in the area.
“The Kamal Adwan Hospital has been exposed to new war crimes, with occupation forces committing all forms of murder and violence in and around the hospital,” the Health Ministry in Ramallah said on Friday. “The casualties remaining inside are seriously injured and require immediate treatment.
“For more than a year, the Ministry has appealed daily to protect treatment centers, medical executives, emergency personnel and vehicles, and volunteer medical teams, to deter invasions, and to allow emergency medical supplies and supplies into the country. Sent off for medical treatment.”
Report contributed by Belal Mortaja.
