Israeli attack forces last operating hospital in northern Gaza to stop operations

Northern Gaza’s health system is now completely out of commission following the Israeli invasion of the area’s last operational hospital on Friday, a health official said.

According to Marwan al-Homs, director of the field hospitals in the Palestinian Ministry of Health, around 200 seriously injured patients at Kamal Adwan Hospital are at risk of imminent death after an invasion by Israeli forces that destroyed medical supplies and detained staff.

“If the world does not intervene to stop this crime and genocide in Gaza, the certain fate of these patients is death,” he told Al Jazeera during a live interview on Saturday.

“Israeli soldiers destroyed all medicine stocks in the hospital yesterday, claiming that they were searching for militants. Now, all medicine stocks have been deliberately damaged to prevent doctors from saving the lives of the wounded.

“The smell of death is everywhere in the hospital and its surroundings,” he added.

Israeli forces stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia on Friday around 2 a.m. local time (12 a.m. GMT).

The assault began with airstrikes on the hospital and its courtyards, including the medical oxygen generator, according to Dr. Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The bombing of the oxygen supply led to the deaths of children in the hospital and injuries to medical staff, Bursh said.

“Instead of getting help, we get tanks… that are shelling the (hospital) building,” Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said in a video posted on his social media shortly after the attack.

On Saturday, health officials saying Abu Safiya’s son had died as a result of the Israeli invasion of the hospital.

Social media users shared images of Ibrahim Abu Safiya’s funeral, with his father leading prayers and participating in the burial ceremony.

الدكتور حسام أبو صفية، مدير مستشفى كمال عدوان، يستقبل جثمان ابنه ا استشهد، يؤدي واجبه تجاه أبناء شعبنا الفلسطيني. نسأل الله أن يربط على قلبه.

Dr. Hossam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, receives the body of… pic.twitter.com/aF9novR3YA

-د. منير عبدالله البرش (@Dr_Muneer1) October 26, 2024

A few hours after the airstrikes, Israeli troops stormed the hospital and called on all patients, including those in intensive care, to gather in the courtyard.

They attacked everyone inside, the hospital’s nursing director told Al Araby TV.

“Hundreds of patients, medical staff and some displaced people from homes near the hospital, who had sought refuge there from the continued shelling, have been detained,” the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement.

“Food, medicine and medical supplies necessary to save the lives of the injured and patients in the hospital have not been provided or supplied.”

According to Homs, after Israeli troops withdrew from the hospital, quadcopters began shooting at it, injuring more people inside.

Extermination

The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, denounced the attack on the Kamal Adwan hospital as “deeply disturbing.”

He said the WHO had lost contact with its staff there.

“Kamal Adwan Hospital has been overwhelmed with nearly 200 patients, a constant stream of horrific trauma cases. It is also filled with hundreds of people seeking shelter, he wrote in X.

“We ask for an immediate ceasefire; and protection of hospitals, patients, health professionals and humanitarian personnel,” he added.

Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in northern Gaza severely affected by the intense Israeli siege and attacks since Israel launched a new offensive in the area on October 5.

The other two hospitals, the Indonesian Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital, have ceased operations in recent days due to Israeli attacks and severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

Until Friday’s Israeli raid, Kamal Adwan Hospital had been operating at minimal capacity, providing life-saving care to newborns in neonatal intensive care units and other patients in ICUs.

Human rights groups have condemned Israel’s operation in northern Gaza as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse the area of ​​Palestinians.

A UN investigation earlier this month accused Israel of committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination in Gaza through its attacks on the health system.