Israeli forces have carried out another brutal raid of one of the only partially functioning hospitals left in north Gaza, forcing out all patients and staff in the besieged facility and killing at least four staff in an attack on Friday.
Israeli forces encircled the hospital early Friday morning while carrying out horrific attacks near the hospital, witnesses said.
Ahead of the raid, two people in plainclothes entered the hospital with megaphones, ordering an evacuation. Soldiers then stormed the facility, forcing all staff, patients and displaced people into the hospital’s courtyard.
Israeli soldiers forced the Indonesian emergency surgery team to permanently leave, meaning there are now no surgeons left at the facility, according to hospital director Hussam Abu Safiya.
Four physicians were killed in the attack, according to Safiya, and there were “hundreds of bodies and wounded individuals” in the area surrounding the hospital after the raid. Israeli forces bombed oxygen generators in strikes overnight. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Israel gave “no official warning” of the attack ahead of time.
Just earlier this week, the UN had facilitated the deployment of an emergency medical team to Kamal Adwan for the first time in 60 days, after the facility’s staff and Gaza health officials had been begging for assistance for weeks. In a raid on the facility in late October, when there were hundreds of patients at the hospital, Israeli forces arrested all but one of the hospital’s medical staff. Now, there are roughly 100 patients left in the hospital.
“The situation inside the hospital and its vicinity is catastrophic,” said Safiya. “Medical supplies are nearly depleted, and there are hundreds of casualties around the hospital. Human rights organizations and international institutions must take action to save what can be saved.”
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that their field times found that the two people the Israeli military used to warn of the raid were detainees who soldiers were using as “human shields.”
Israeli forces have targeted Kamal Adwan for weeks. The hospital was once the last fully operational hospital left in north Gaza and is now only partially operational, with Israeli forces relentlessly attacking the facility’s staff, generators, fuel tanks and oxygen station in recent weeks.
Just in the past week, according to a count by Euro-Med Monitor, Israeli forces have directly attacked Kamal Adwan Hospital at least 10 times, injuring over 22 people. They have also been bombing the other two remaining hospitals in the region, Indonesian Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital.
The human rights group says that the attacks make it clear that Israeli forces’ goal is to destroy the health system in north Gaza.
“These attacks highlight Israel’s ongoing efforts to completely shut down northern Gaza’s hospitals,” said Euro-Med Monitor. “Already crippled by a lack of medical supplies, these hospitals operate with exhausted staff overwhelmed by months of famine and continuous emergencies. The aim appears to be the eradication of any chance of survival for Palestinians in northern Gaza.”
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