The Israeli army announced that it had launched an operation on Friday against Hamas fighters near one of the last hospitals still operational in northern Gaza. The Palestinian movement accused the soldiers of storming the facility.
The operation near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia comes the day after the hospital’s director, Dr. Hossam Abou Safiya, announced the death of five members of his staff in an Israeli strike. The Israeli army, questioned by AFP, did not react to this strike.
In its statement Friday, the army said the hospital had become “a stronghold of terrorist organizations and continues to be used as a hideout by terrorists.” Based on information from intelligence services, Israeli forces launched an operation near the hospital, according to the army.
“The troops are carrying out targeted operations” and trying to prevent civilians, patients and medical personnel from being affected, she added.
The north targeted
Since October 6, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in the north of the Gaza Strip, according to the army, to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping. Before launching the operation near the hospital, the army said its troops had “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel” from the facility.
But Hamas said in a statement that “the occupying army stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, forcing medical staff, patients, the injured and displaced people to evacuate.” He accused Israeli forces “of detaining evacuees.”
“Hamas holds the occupation fully responsible for the lives of the patients, the wounded and the medical personnel, whom it arrested and took to an unknown location,” the movement added. All communication with it was cut off, according to Hamas.
“Surgery department on fire”
The Israeli military regularly accuses Hamas of using hospitals as command centers to launch attacks against its forces. Hamas denies these accusations.
Citing the hospital director, the Health Ministry of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory said the Israeli army had “set fire to all of the hospital’s surgical departments.”
The army also “evacuated all medical staff and displaced people,” the hospital director said. “There are a large number of injured among the medical team,” added Mr. Abou Safiya. As of Friday morning, the hospital housed around 350 people, including 75 injured and sick, as well as 180 medical staff, according to the hospital director.
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. . Hospital officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mr. Abou Safiya on Monday accused Israeli forces of targeting the hospital, “with the intention of killing and forcibly displacing the people there.”
The World Health Organization described conditions at Kamal Adwan Hospital as “appalling” and said the facility was operating at a “minimum” level.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
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