One of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals has been forcibly evacuated by the Israeli military, medics say, after dozens of people were reportedly killed in Israeli strikes targeting the area around the healthcare facility.
Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan hospital, told the BBC that at about 07:00 on Friday, the military gave the administration 15 minutes to evacuate patients and staff into its courtyard.
Israeli troops subsequently entered the hospital and were removing the remaining patients, he said.
The Israeli military said on Friday afternoon that it was carrying out an operation in the area of the hospital, which it called a “Hamas terrorist stronghold”.
Israeli troops had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel” from the hospital before beginning the operation, it added.
The military did not say where the patients would be moved. But earlier in the week, an Israeli official said that they intended to relocate those at Kamal Adwan hospital to the nearby Indonesian hospital, which was itself evacuated by the military on Tuesday.
Dr Sabbah said “it’s dangerous because there are patients in the ICU department in a coma and in need of ventilation machines and moving them will put them in danger”.
“If the army intends to continue removing these patients, they will need specialised vehicles.”
Dr Yousef Abu-Al Rish, Gaza’s deputy minister of health, later told the BBC that patients in a serious condition had been taken to the Indonesian hospital, which he said is not functioning due to there being no generators or water.
“You can’t call it a hospital, it’s more of a shelter. It’s not equipped for patients,” Dr Abu-Al Rish said.
The World Health Organization said the raid “has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service”.
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” it posted on X on Friday evening.
Nadav Shoshani, international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said in a post on Friday evening on X that a “small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control”.
This was when IDF troops were not inside the hospital, he said, adding that “after preliminary examination, no connection was found between IDF activity to the fire”.
It comes hours after the director of Kamal Adwan hospital said that approximately 50 people had been killed, including five medical staff, in a series of Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital.
The statement from Dr Hussam Abu Safiya said a building opposite the hospital was targeted by Israeli warplanes, leading to the death of a paediatrician and a lab technician, as well as their families.
He said a third staff member who worked as a maintenance technician was targeted and killed as he rushed to the scene of the first strike.
Two of the hospital’s paramedics were 500m (1,640ft) away from the hospital when they were targeted and killed by another strike, the statement continued, with their bodies remaining in the street with no-one able to reach them.
The Israeli military said on Friday morning that it was “unaware of strikes in the area of Kamal Adwan hospital” and was looking into the reports that staff had been killed.
Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia has been under a tightening Israeli blockade imposed on parts of northern Gaza since October, when the military said it had launched an offensive to stop Hamas from regrouping there.
The UN has said the area is under a “near-total siege” as the Israeli military heavy restricts access of aid deliveries to an area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.
In recent days, the hospital’s administrators have issued desperate pleas appealing to be protected, as they say the facility has become regularly the target of Israeli shelling and explosives.
Oxfam said that attempts by aid agencies to deliver supplies to the area since October had been unsuccessful because of “deliberate delays and systematic obstructions” by the Israeli military.
Additional reporting by Shaimaa Khalil
