Gaza health officials and the WHO said Saturday that an Israeli military raid targeting Hamas militants has forced a major hospital in northern Gaza out of service and led to the detention of its director.The military said it intercepted two projectiles fired toward Israel from northern Gaza, a rare attack more than 14 months into Israel’s war with the Palestinian militants, whose top leaders have been killed.Since October 6, Israeli operations in Gaza have focused on the north, where they are carrying out a land and air offensive they say aims to prevent Hamas from regrouping but which the United Nations on Tuesday said had left north Gaza “under a near-total siege”.The military’s assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia has rendered the facility “useless”, further worsening Gaza’s severe health crisis, the Palestinian territory’s health officials said.The World Health Organization said the operation had put the “last major health facility in north Gaza out of service”. “Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” it added in a statement on X.The Israeli military says it has killed hundreds of militants since October 6, while rescuers in the area say thousands of civilians have died.The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including some on ventilators, reportedly remained in Kamal Adwan Hospital.Patients in less severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed, non-functioning Indonesian Hospital, the UN health agency said, adding it was “deeply concerned for their safety”.Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry reported that Israeli forces had detained Kamal Adwan’s director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, along with several medical staff. – ‘Catastrophic’ -AFP was unable to independently verify whether Abu Safiyeh had been detained, but multiple attempts to reach him by telephone were unsuccessful.Gaza’s civil defence agency said Abu Safiyeh was held alongside its north Gaza chief, Ahmed Hassan al-Kahlout.The Israeli military did not comment on the detentions.One of the Gazans evacuated from the hospital, who asked to be identified only as Mohammad for security reasons, told AFP some evacuees were interrogated about Hamas.”As we began to exit, the army asked all young men to take off their clothes and walk outside the hospital,” said Mohammad, whose brother was a patient there.”They (soldiers) took tens of young men, as well as physicians and patients, to an unknown place… The young men were interrogated. They were asked about resistance fighters, Hamas and weapons.”Ammar al-Barsh, a resident of nearby Jabalia, said the raid on Kamal Adwan and its environs had left dozens of homes in ruins.”The situation is catastrophic. There is no medical service, no ambulances and no civil defence in the north,” Barsh, 50, told AFP.The army “continues to raid the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding houses, and we hear gunfire from Israeli drones and artillery shelling”, he added.Ahead of the raid, Abu Safiyeh had repeatedly warned about the hospital’s precarious situation.On Monday, he accused Israel of targeting the hospital “with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the people inside”.The military said Friday that it was acting on intelligence regarding “terrorist infrastructure and operatives” in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital.- Arson allegations -Before initiating the latest raid near the hospital, the military said its troops had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical personnel”.Hamas has denied claims its operatives were present at the hospital.”The enemy’s lies about the hospital aim to justify the heinous crime committed by the occupation army today, involving the evacuation and burning of all hospital departments as part of a plan for extermination and forced displacement,” Hamas said in a statement.Gaza’s health ministry had earlier quoted Abu Safiyeh reporting that the military had “set on fire all surgery departments of the hospital”.”There are a large number of injuries among the medical team,” the ministry quoted him saying. The Israeli military has regularly accused Hamas of using hospitals as command and control centres for attacks against its forces throughout the war.Hamas has denied the accusations.”This raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital comes after escalating restrictions on access for WHO and partners, and repeated attacks on or near the facility since early October,” the WHO said.The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, said that on Tuesday the military had also “reportedly entered the Indonesian Hospital, ordering patients, caregivers and staff to evacuate to Gaza city.” The same day, “military tanks reportedly attacked the third floor of the eastern wing of the Al Awda Hospital, causing panic”, following previous air strikes that damaged the facility, OCHA said.A separate Israeli strike in central Gaza killed at least nine Palestinians on Saturday, Gaza’s civil defence also reported.The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,484 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Sat, 28 Dec 2024 15:48:12 GMT
