Israel forcibly evacuates one of the last operational hospitals in northern Gaza

One of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza was forcibly evacuated by the Israeli army, after dozens of people were killed in Israeli attacks targeting the area surrounding the health center.

Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan Hospital, told the BBC that on Friday morning (local time), the army gave the facility’s administration 15 minutes to evacuate patients and staff to its courtyard. .

Later, Israeli troops entered the hospital and removed the patients who had not yet left, Sabbah added.

Israeli army sources stated on Friday afternoon that they were carrying out an operation in the hospital area, which they described as a “Hamas terrorist stronghold.”

Israeli troops, they added, facilitated “the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical staff” from the hospital before beginning the operation.

The military did not say where the patients would be moved. But earlier in the week, an Israeli official reported that they intended to transfer people from Kamal Adwan Hospital to the nearby Indonesian hospital, which in turn was evacuated by the military on Tuesday.

“It is dangerous because there are patients in the Intensive Care Unit who are in a coma and need ventilation machines and moving them will put them in danger,” Dr. Sabbah said.

“If the military intends to continue removing these patients, they will need specialized vehicles.”

The development comes hours after hospital director Kamal Adwan said that approximately 50 people had been killed, including five medical staff, in a series of Israeli airstrikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital.

The statement by doctor Hussam Abu Safiya noted that a building in front of the hospital was attacked by Israeli warplanes, resulting in the deaths of a pediatrician and a laboratory technician, as well as their families.

The statement continued: “Two paramedics were 500 meters from the hospital when they were attacked and died from another attack, and their bodies were left in the street without anyone being able to reach them.”

The Israeli military said Friday morning that “I was not aware of attacks in the Kamal Adwan hospital area” and that it was investigating reports that staff members had died.

The Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia has been under an increasingly strict Israeli blockade imposed on parts of northern Gaza since October, when the army said it had launched an offensive to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.

The UN has said the area is under a “near total siege” as the Israeli military heavily restricts access for aid deliveries in an area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.

In recent days, hospital administrators have made desperate pleas for protection as they say the facility has regularly become the target of Israeli bombing.

The international organization Oxfam said that attempts by aid agencies to deliver supplies to the area since October have been unsuccessful due to “deliberate delays and systematic obstructions” by the Israeli army.

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