Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last remaining medical facility in the northern Gaza Strip, setting much of it on fire and ordering hundreds of people to leave.
The Gaza Health Ministry announced on Friday that it had lost contact with staff inside a hospital in Beit Lahya, which has been under Israeli siege and intense pressure for weeks. It added that there was no information regarding the safety of the patients inside.
“Occupation forces are currently inside the hospital and are burning it down,” the ministry’s director-general, Munir al-Burush, said in a statement.
The Israeli military issued a statement confirming that it had launched an attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital, claiming without evidence that the medical facility “has become a terrorist base for Hamas in northern Gaza.”
Throughout its attacks on Gaza, Israeli forces have routinely surrounded and attacked medical facilities housing both patients and displaced families under similar pretexts.
a fire breaks out
Gaza’s deputy health minister, Youssef Abu El-Rish, said Israeli forces set fire to the hospital’s surgical department, laboratory and warehouse.
A separate statement from the enclave’s health ministry said the fire then “spread to all buildings” in the medical complex.
The newspaper said Kamal Adwan was “suffering under a stifling siege, with the surgery department, surgery department, laboratory, maintenance, ambulance squad and warehouse completely burnt down.”
The ministry added that all generators at the facility were destroyed.
“The (Israeli) occupation forces, under threat of weapons and gun barrels, are forcibly transporting patients and the injured to Indonesian hospitals, which are stocked with medical supplies, water, medicine, and more. There is a lack of electricity and even generators.”
Like Indonesian Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital, Kamal Adwan has been subject to repeated attacks by Israeli forces, especially since Israeli forces launched new ground attacks in the area more than two months ago. . Since then, the northern part, with famine looming, has been completely surrounded and cut off from the rest of the Strip.
Al-Bash said the Israeli military ordered 350 people to leave Kamal Adwan and head to a nearby school where displaced families would be sheltered. This includes 75 patients, their companions, and 185 medical staff.
Footage circulated in local media showed smoke rising from the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Large areas around the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanun and Beit Rahiya have been cleared of people and systematically destroyed, leading to speculation that Israel intends to maintain the area as a closed buffer zone. I’m calling.
“A devastating blow”
Al Jazeera’s Tarek Abu Azizm, reporting from Deir el-Bala in central Gaza, said there was a lack of information coming out of Kamal Adwan on Friday, but witnesses who were inside the facility said it was inspected by Israeli soldiers. He said he was facing.
Witnesses also “confirmed that the Israeli army carried out a field execution near (the hospital),” Abu Azzum said, adding that the fate of the hospital director was unknown.
Kamal Adwan has witnessed a “gradual escalation” and “deliberate attacks” by Israeli forces, the correspondent said, adding that forced evacuations and fires have “devastated the already fragile health system in northern Gaza”. ”, he added.
Health authorities announced Thursday that Israeli shelling in Kamal Adwan killed five medical staff, including a pediatrician.
In a statement, Hamas blamed Israel and the United States for the fate of the hospital residents.
“The (Israeli) occupation government is committing crimes in Gaza, relying on American support and some Western capital who are partners in the ongoing genocide,” he said on Telegram.
Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the United Nations World Health Organization, expressed concern about the situation.
“We are seeing civilians and the health system in Gaza being targeted,” Harris told Al Jazeera. “The conditions in Gaza’s hospitals are appalling and what we are witnessing represents punishment for the population.”
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 25 people, including 15 in a house in Gaza City, medical officials and civilian emergency services said.
Also on Friday, 14 countries joined or indicated their intention to join South Africa’s genocide lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Organizations such as the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International have also acknowledged that Israel’s actions in Gaza are consistent with the crime of genocide.
More than 45,300 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since October last year, according to health officials in the enclave. Most of the 2.3 million people have been evacuated and much of the Gaza Strip is in ruins.
