Israeli forces have arrested all but one of the medical staff at the only operational hospital left in north Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday, after a days-long siege left the facility in ruins.
Only one pediatrician remains at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which was treating hundreds of patients and serving as a shelter to more than 600 Palestinians, after Israeli forces “arrested and deported all the medical staff” there, the ministry said. The Ministry of Health called for those with surgical skills to go to the hospital in order to help the patients left there.
Kamal Adwan Hospital was the last fully functional medical center in north Gaza before Israel’s siege, with the other two facilities in the region only partially operational.
The fate of the medical workers is currently unknown. The Israeli military reportedly pulled out of the hospital on Saturday after having caused extensive damage to the facility. Earlier reports found that Israel had imprisoned the majority of the hospital’s 70 staff members and later released roughly a dozen of them, including the hospital’s director Hossam Abu Safiyeh. Israeli forces later claimed, without evidence, that they had arrested fighters at the hospital.
“The smell of death has spread around the hospital,” Gaza Health Ministry’s director of field hospitals Marwan al-Hams told Al Jazeera. The UN has estimated that 440,000 Palestinians remain in north Gaza, with almost no option to obtain health care amid heavy Israeli shelling and attacks; the Gaza Civil Defense agency reported last week that it has had to suspend emergency services in northern Gaza due to Israel’s siege.
World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the situation there is “catastrophic.”
“Intensive military operations unfolding around and within healthcare facilities and a critical shortage of medical supplies, compounded by severely limited access, are depriving people of life saving care,” Tedros said.
MedGlobal, a U.S.-based humanitarian group, said on Monday that five of its staff have been detained at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
“With limited communication access to our team in northern Gaza, MedGlobal is gravely concerned for their safety and well-being amid increasingly perilous conditions.”
On Friday, Israeli forces killed Safiyeh’s son after Safiyeh refused to evacuate the hospital. Safiyeh had been outspoken about Israel’s assault as Israeli forces closed in on the hospital in recent weeks.
Israel’s siege on the hospital has had horrific consequences. At least two children died due to the Israeli military’s destruction of the oxygen station and generators on Friday. Israeli forces shelled the hospital’s courtyard and surrounded the hospital and began shooting, witnesses told Al Jazeera, while soldiers inside used the hospital speakers to call for Safiyeh. This is reportedly the 14th time Israeli forces have attacked the hospital.
Israel’s siege on north Gaza has killed at least 1,000 Palestinians so far, with no end in sight to the slaughter.