A fire has broken out at one of northern Gaza’s only functioning hospitals, while medics and patients have been forced to leave by Israeli forces, who raided the hospital on Friday morning, according to staff members.
Kamal Adwan hospital and the surrounding area has been under increased attack this week, according to the hospital’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who said five medical staff were killed in a strike on Thursday.
Abu Safiya said he was threatened with arrest by Israeli forces, who ordered staff to leave and patients to be transferred to the Indonesian hospital, including those in critical care who rely on oxygen to survive.
“The occupation army is burning all the operating departments in the hospital while we are still there. The army evacuated the entire medical staff and the displaced people and arrested a number of the medical staff. There are a large number of injuries among the medical staff,” Abu Safiya posted on Instagram. He added that much of the hospital building and equipment was damaged.
“We currently don’t know what will happen to us, the patients are being forcibly evacuated to the Indonesian hospital. They cut the oxygen from them, there are patients who [could] die at any moment,” said a member of the medical staff in a voice message shared by Abu Safiya.
Unverified video footage from the hospital’s vicinity showed a group of men in their underwear walking past Israeli troops.
Kamal Adwan hospital has been working under siege since October, when Israeli forces began a third military operation in the Jabaliya refugee camp that involved the mass demolition of buildings and infrastructure.
Over the past week, Abu Safiya has described an intensified siege of the hospital, sharing videos of quadcopter drones dropping explosives in the vicinity.
He said a strike on a nearby building killed 50 people on Thursday – among them two paramedics, a paediatrician, a lab technician and a hospital maintenance worker.
Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces, said it is examining the claim that five medical staff were killed but said it disputed the number of reported casualties in the area.
“The IDF operates against terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the area of Jabaliya and continued its operations over the last day. The IDF is unaware of strikes in the area of the Kamal Adwan hospital,” they said.
The Israeli military said in a statement that Kasmal Adwan hospital served as a Hamas terrorist stronghold and that it had made efforts to mitigate harm to civilians and had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel prior to the operation”.
