One of the last operating hospitals in northern Gaza was forcibly evacuated by Israeli forces, health officials said, after scores of people were reported killed in Israeli strikes targeting the area around the health facility.
Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan Hospital, told the BBC that at around 07:00 on Friday, the military gave the administration 15 minutes to evacuate the patients and staff from their yard.
Israeli soldiers then entered the hospital and evacuated the remaining patients, he said.
The Israeli army said on Friday afternoon that it was conducting an operation in the area of the hospital, which it called a “Hamas terrorist base”.
The Israeli army “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel” from the hospital before starting the operation, it added.
The military did not say where the patients would be taken. But earlier in the week, an Israeli official said they intended to move those in Kamal Adwan Hospital to a nearby Indonesian hospital, which was also evacuated by the military on Tuesday.
Dr. Sabbah said “it is dangerous because there are patients in the ICU suffering from coma and they need ventilators and moving them will put them at risk”.
“If the army intends to continue to evacuate these patients, they will need special vehicles.”
The World Health Organization said the attack “knocked out the largest health facility in northern Gaza”.
“Initial reports indicate that some important buildings were badly burned and destroyed during the raid,” X wrote on Friday evening.
It comes hours after hospital director Kamal Adwan said around 50 people were killed, including five medical workers, in a series of Israeli airstrikes near the hospital.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s statement said that the building opposite the hospital was targeted by Israeli warplanes, resulting in the death of a pediatrician and a lab technician, as well as their families.
He said one of the third workers who was working as a maintenance technician was targeted and killed while rushing to the site of the first strike.
Two paramedics from the hospital were 500m (1,640ft) away from the hospital when they were pointed out and killed by another strike, the statement continued, their bodies still lying on the road with no one able to reach them.
Israel’s military said on Friday morning it had “no information about strikes in the Kamal Adwan Hospital area” and was looking into reports that workers had been killed.
Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia has been under a strict Israeli blockade imposed on the northern parts of Gaza since October, when the army said it launched an attack to prevent Hamas from assembling there.
The UN said the area was “almost completely besieged” as Israeli forces prevented aid from reaching the area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.
In recent days, the management of the hospital has issued requests to be protected, as they say that the center has become a target of Israeli gunfire and explosives.
Oxfam said efforts by aid agencies to bring supplies to the area since October have been unsuccessful due to “deliberate delays and systematic obstruction” by the Israeli army.
Source link
