After an hours-long communication blackout, the director of northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital told CNN that Israeli troops are still present on the ground, describing the situation as “truly terrifying.”
Israeli troops were still present in the hospital when its director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, spoke to CNN shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday, recounting how “intense bombardment” of the building had caused “glass to shatter everywhere and doors to break.”
Abu Safiya said the Israeli military were currently in the process of “searching all the rooms, evacuating the displaced people and removing 44 staff members.”
At least 600 staff, patients and family members are currently in the hospital, said the Gaza Ministry of Health, describing the situation as “deteriorating” at an alarming rate.
Israeli forces cut off the hospital’s electricity and solar power supply and prevented staff from accessing the water well, he said.
Two children on ventilators died after the Israeli military blew up the hospital’s oxygen supply, Abu Safiya said.
He said children residing in the nursery also had to be urgently transferred to the ICU area after Israeli soldiers opened fire on the facility. Three members of the hospital’s nursing staff were injured by sniper fire with facial, neck and chest injuries. A cleaner was also shot in the face, he added.
The Israeli military said in an earlier statement Friday that its forces are operating in the area of the Kamal Adwan Hospital “based on intelligence information regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure.” It claimed the military had helped patients evacuate the area in the weeks prior.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into the strip, said on Friday that with the help of United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and World Health Organization, several patients and their escorts were evacuated from the facility. The hospital was also given fuel, blood units and medical equipment.
But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated on X that the hospital is housing about 200 patients, along with hundreds more seeking shelter there.
