URGENT APPEAL: Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure is being destroyed!!

TRIBUNE of the collective “White Blouses for Gaza of December 28, 2024

We, humanitarian organizations and healthcare workers in France, would like to call on our representatives to alert them to the situation of healthcare staff and patients at Kamal Adwan hospital, in the town of Beit Lahia, in the north of Gaza.

After more than 90 days of siege, Kamal Adwan Hospital suffered a raid on December 27, 2024, carried out by the Israeli armed forces. The hospital housed 75 patients and their companions and 180 employees. Several dozen members of the hospital staffincluding the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, were forcibly taken to a detention center for interrogation. Videos show healthcare workers leaving the hospital, clad only in underwear, with their hands raised and surrounded by armed Israeli soldiers. Israeli forces not only evacuated the Kamal Adwan Hospital but also ensured that it could never be used again by destroying the operating theaters and critical care units with explosive charges. Medical records were also deliberately burned by the Israeli army. Nothing in this destruction was left to chance. For the Israeli forces, it was a question ofpermanently destroy the capacity to provide healthcare in northern Gaza.

Kamal Adwan Hospital included a neonatology department caring for very premature babies and had the only operational incubators in northern Gaza. According to the WHOthe Israeli army ordered, after the destruction of the hospital, the movement of patients to the Indonesian hospital which is no longer functional, no longer having an oxygen station, fuel or electrical generators. The WHO reiterated its call for a ceasefire. « This raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital comes after the escalation of access restrictions for the WHO and its partners, and repeated attacks on or near the establishment since the beginning of October “, she indicated. She recalls that “thehe systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians who need health care (…) this horror must end and health care must be protected ».

For two monthsthe Israeli army relentless attack Kamal Adwan Hospital. The first assault took place on October 25 and 26, 2024. 44 male employees were arrested and three nurses and a maintenance worker were injured during the raid. On November 3, an Israeli attack hit the third floor of the hospital, injuring six hospitalized children and damaging the water tanks. On November 21, a new attack seriously damaged the hospital’s electrical generator. On November 29, an Israeli drone killed Dr. Al Khalout. From December 3 to 7, Israeli bombings killed seven people, including 4 caregivers and a 16-year-old teenager in a wheelchair. On December 12, Israeli forces killed Dr. Saeed Judeh, the last orthopedic surgeon in northern Gaza, and a nurse. On December 23, Israeli forces detonated charges near the hospital, injuring at least 20 patients and medical staff. On December 26, 2024, the day before the hospital was destroyed, 5 staff members were killed by the Israeli army. All the while, hospital director Kamal Adwan, Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya never stopped calling for help the international community to save its patients from certain death if the hospital was destroyed. On Saturday, December 21, Doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, in despair, published one of his latest videos where he said: “ we called out to the world for help, we begged for
protection of the hospital, but our calls remain unanswered. Today, any movement inside or outside the hospital is synonymous with death. Moreover, we are starving. Communicate this truth to the world ».

The destruction and evacuation of the Kamal Adwan hospital is part of a clear desire to empty the northern zone of its population.

As of October 6, the Israeli armed forces ordered residents to “evacuate” the area to go to the South, which is nevertheless just as insecure.

Since October 2023, Israel’s war against Gaza has caused the deaths of more than 45,000 civilians. The human rights NGO Amnesty International issued a report, stating thathe Israeli authorities commit a crime of genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza. « Our damning findings should ring a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide, which must stop immediately », Explained its general secretary, Agnès Callamard. Two weeks later, Human Rights Watch reached the same conclusions indicating that “theThe Israeli authorities have deliberately created living conditions aimed at causing the destruction of part of the population of Gaza, by depriving intentionally Palestinian civilians in the enclave have adequate access to water, which probably caused thousands of deaths ».

What is happening before the eyes of the world is the chronicle of a genocide announced on October 8, 2023 by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, actcurrently under arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Gaza Strip, who publicly stated: “ we impose a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no water, no gas, everything is closed (…) We fight human animals and we act accordingly ».

Todaywe see no visible effort, no good will, no interest on the part of the rest of the world to come to the aid of these people. The situation of nursing staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital and his patients, many of whom are extremely premature, raises an indescribable emotion from the healthcare community in France and around the world. A hospital should never be targeted. Our ethics and our conscience lead us to call on the French Government so that he uses all the means at his disposal to obtain:

– Immediate actions on the part of international authorities to ensure the release of healthcare staff and civilians from Kamal Adwan Hospital. The vast majority of Kamal Adwan’s caregivers, including the director, Dr. Houssam Abou Safiyya, were arrested. According to our information, he suffered ill-treatment upon his arrest, and we fear what he is enduring today under interrogation.

– The immediate cessation of any type of attack on health infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

– The opening of a two-way humanitarian corridor allowing:

1) the transport of war sick and wounded, the delivery of medical equipment and food taking into consideration the real needs of the population, and this for all hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
2) The evacuation abroad of children with their parents from Kamal Adwan hospital and other hospitals not able to operate in order to continue their care.

Faced with the extreme violence deployed against Gaza, It is the responsibility of leaders to put in place immediate actions. Refusing to act today means rejecting the Palestinians outside the human community. France cannot bring itself to do so.

N.B:

On December 26, 2024, we produced an article calling for saving Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last bastion of vital care in northern Gaza. This forum, which had collected more than 600 signatures – including those of more than 300 NGOs, humanitarian and health associations, as well as caregivers who have worked in Gaza since October 2023 – carried the hope of a mobilization to protect patients and the medical staff. But the situation, already dramatic, quickly worsened, leaving us not enough time to publish it. On December 28, after the destruction of the Kamal Adwan hospital, its fire with some of its occupants, and the forced evacuation of patients to an Indonesian hospital already out of use since December 22, we had to produce a new tribune (above).

On 12/29/2024, two other hospitals, ‘Al Wafa’ and ‘Al Ahli’, were targeted in turn, worsening the humanitarian catastrophe and raising fears of the worst for the future of our fellow Gazans healthcare workers. The objective seems clear: to erase all traces of Palestinian life in the north of the Gaza Strip.

???? We also invite you to read our first column, written urgently on December 26, 2024. These two forums, as well as our relentless healthcare mobilization in France and internationally, illustrate our deep concern about the scale of the violations committed and carry the urgent appeal of French and international healthcare workers in solidarity with their colleagues in permanent danger to Gaza.