The WHO announced Friday that the last major operational hospital in northern Gaza was “out of service” after an Israeli army raid against Hamas fighters near this establishment, which the Palestinian Islamist movement said had been stormed.
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“This morning’s raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital put this last major health center in northern Gaza out of service,” located in Beit Lahia, denounced the World Health Organization (WHO) in X.
“Initial reports indicate that key services were set on fire and destroyed during the raid. Sixty members of the healthcare staff and 25 patients are in critical condition,” adds the international organization headquartered in Geneva.
On Friday, the Israeli army announced that it had launched an operation against Hamas fighters near this crucial hospital in a Gaza Strip with bloodless health services, devastated by 14 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
This operation near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia comes the day after the announcement by the director of the establishment, Dr Hossam Abou Safiya, of the death of five personnel in an Israeli strike.
AFP
“Bastion of terrorist organizations”
In its statement Friday, the Israeli army called the hospital a “stronghold of terrorist organizations […]used as a hiding place by terrorists.
Based on intelligence information, Israeli forces launched an operation near the hospital.
“The troops are carrying out targeted operations” and trying to prevent civilians, patients and medical personnel from being affected, the army added.
Since October 6, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in the north of the Gaza Strip to prevent, according to the army, Hamas fighters from regrouping.
Before launching the operation near the hospital, the army claimed its troops had “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel” from the facility.
But according to Hamas, “the occupying army stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital, forcing medical staff, patients, wounded and displaced people to evacuate.”
In a statement, Hamas accused Israeli forces “of detaining evacuees.”
AFP
“Forced displacement”
“Hamas holds the occupation fully responsible for the lives of the patients, wounded and medical personnel it arrested and took to an unknown location,” the movement added. All communication with them was cut off, according to him.
The Israeli military regularly accuses Hamas of using hospitals as command centers to launch attacks against its forces. Hamas denies these accusations.
On Friday, the Palestinian movement “categorically denied” in a statement “any military activity or presence of resistance fighters in the Kamal Adwan hospital.”
“The lies of the enemy about the hospital are intended to justify the abominable crime committed today by the occupying army which evacuated and set fire to all the departments of the hospital as part of a plan of extermination and forced displacement,” he adds, calling for a UN commission of inquiry into “the scale of the crime” of the Israeli army in northern Gaza.
Citing the hospital director, the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Palestinian territory said that the Israeli army had “set fire to all the surgical departments of the hospital.”
As of Friday morning, the hospital housed around 350 people, including 75 injured and sick, as well as 180 medical staff, according to the director of the establishment.
Witnesses in the area told AFP that the hospital had been evacuated and that hundreds of people living nearby had been “forced to take refuge at the Al-Fakhoura school and the Indonesian hospital” in Jabalia. .
In response to an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, the Israeli army launched a devastating offensive against the Palestinian territory that it has been besieging ever since. According to the Hamas government’s Health Ministry, at least 45,436 Palestinians died there.
The Hamas attack carried out from the Gaza Strip resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
