Israel Attacks Children’s Hospital in Gaza, Forcing It to Close

Israeli attacks have forced a pediatric hospital and the only eye care hospital in Gaza to close, according to Middle East Eye.

The pediatric hospital, Al-Rantisi Hospital, provides care not available anywhere else in Gaza, the outlet reports.

“There are no safe routes to reach hospitals and medical facilities, preventing patients and the wounded from accessing care,” the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement, as per Middle East Eye. “The occupation is deliberately and systematically targeting the healthcare system in Gaza City as part of its policy of genocide against the population of the Gaza Strip.”

Israel has repeatedly attacked Gaza’s hospitals, health care workers, patients, and rescue workers. Since October 2023, Israel has massacred more than 1,700 medical staff and attacked 38 hospitals.

In July, Israel killed renowned cardiologist Marwan Sultan, the director of Indonesian Hospital, while he was in his home. He was the the 70th health care worker killed by Israel in the previous 50 days, according to Healthcare Workers Watch – Palestine, a group that monitors attacks on Gaza’s health care system. His daughter told The New Yorker the “missile was dropped on his room exactly, on his place, on him precisely.”

“My father was just a doctor, just a human caring for patients,” Ahmad, another one of his children, told NBC News.

In August, Israel bombed Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in a so-called “double tap” strike. Video shows the second strike targeting rescuers who came to the scene. Four health care workers and five journalists were killed in the attack. Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 200 journalists in Gaza.

Israel has also abducted, imprisoned, and tortured hundreds of health care workers, many of whom were taken from their hospitals, according to Healthcare Workers Watch – Palestine.

Those detained have included “irreplaceable consultants and specialists in essential specialities like General Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Orthopaedics Surgery, Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care, Cardiology, Paediatrics, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology,” the group said.

Twenty of the physicians detained as of July were abducted from their hospitals, three were taken from medical convoys to transfer patients through Israel-designated “safe routes,” and one was kidnapped in front of a hospital, according to Healthcare Workers Watch.

In December, Israel abducted Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician and director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital. Video shows him walking up to Israeli tanks, wearing his white coat. During his detention he has been beaten with electric shocks and batons, and lost one-third of his body weight. Human rights groups have demanded his release — calls that Israel has ignored.

Israel’s blockade on Gaza has deprived surviving health care workers of essential medical supplies, which has forced doctors to perform medical procedures, including amputations on children and cesarean sections, without anesthesia.

“At every point in their effort to provide care, volunteer health care professionals face systematic practices and policies that directly impact their ability to prevent suffering and loss in Gaza; specifically restrictions that prohibit them from bringing in basic supplies critical to providing lifesaving care,” concluded a report by Physicians for Human Rights.

“[S]weeping and unpredictable restrictions, imposed by Israeli authorities under the guise of ‘dual use’ item limitations, resulted in foreseeable, severe, and often preventable pain and anguish to the women, men, and children who came to them seeking care,” the report continued.