The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, announced today, Wednesday, that after the evacuation of Kamal Adwan Hospital and while the doctors and the hospital director were trying to leave the area towards Gaza City, they were bombed by the occupation army, and they were forced to return to the hospital again, according to what the doctor found. Khaled bin Boutroif is one of the French doctors returning from Gaza.
The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, announced yesterday, Tuesday, that the Israeli occupation is besieging the hospital located in the northern Gaza Strip and demanding that it be completely evacuated of patients and health care staff.
In an audio recording – a copy of which was obtained by Tel Aviv Tribune Net – the hospital director stated that the evacuation of a number of patients began yesterday evening, as intensive care patients were placed on artificial respirators, in an attempt to transfer them to hospitals in the south.
The French doctors returning from Gaza, who are communicating with their colleagues in the Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals, denounce the Israeli army’s attempt to put the health system out of service, and what they described as “systematic genocide” and “forced displacement” of the people of the northern Gaza Strip once again, in light of global silence. applied and the absence of any attempts to end the suffering of the Palestinians.
Difficulty in evacuation
Kamal Adwan Hospital is located in the densely populated neighborhoods of Jabalia. It has between 150 and 200 beds only, an intensive care unit for premature infants and a multi-purpose unit. It provides surgical services, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics and emergency services, as well as a laboratory and a radiology department.
With the increasing number of wounded and martyrs during the recent period, Dr. Khaled Bin Botrif described the hospital’s situation as “critical” due to impossible working conditions and lack of medical equipment, strongly denouncing the international community’s abandonment of Palestinian caregivers who were left alone to face the occupation army.
Ben Boutroif mentioned, in an interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, that he worked in this hospital located in the city of Beit Lahia as part of a French medical delegation throughout last July, where he received news almost daily from his colleagues since his departure.
For his part, French doctor Pascal Andre, a specialist in infectious diseases, explained that what is happening is “crazy, because patients are in a dramatic condition in intensive care, and need intensive care, and today they find themselves forced to leave in difficult circumstances, without providing any guarantee regarding… “The safety of their transportation, which requires appropriate medical means and the provision of oxygen devices to go to the already overcrowded hospitals in the south.”
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, Andre added that he was supposed to return to Gaza last Monday, but the Israeli forces controlling the Kerem Shalom crossing prevented the medical delegation from entering, and refused to cross them from Lebanon as well, and this is clear evidence of the Israelis’ lack of respect for nations. The United Nations or the World Health Organization and health care workers, as he put it.
🚨 “The latest step, which is the forced and violent push of thousands of people from northern Gaza to the south, turns the north into a lifeless desert.”
We call on Israel to stop issuing evacuation orders and immediately allow humanitarian aid in.
⬇️⬇️
– Doctors Without Borders (@msf_arabic) October 9, 2024
death sentence
As the Gaza war enters its second year, towns and cities in the north of the besieged Strip are living under a heavy barrage of missiles and the threat of displacement from the Israeli occupation army, under dire humanitarian conditions and a tight siege that prevents the entry of water, food and medicine supplies.
In this context, French nurse Iman Marafi describes the evacuation orders – whose deadline was very short – as “a real disaster and a direct death sentence,” as some children will not be able to survive without artificial respirators, and there are no guarantees to provide resuscitation equipment for patients in the event of They arrive at hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip.
Speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, the nurse explained that moving from north to south is very difficult, recalling her time in Gaza at the end of last January, saying, “It took more than 20 minutes for us to move a few kilometers from one point to another, so forcing patients to Moving during continuous bombing is murder.”
It is noteworthy that the nurse of Moroccan origins was among the first medical delegation from the “Palmed Europe” association, which went to the Gaza Strip to provide treatment at Khan Yunis Hospital, and since her return to France, she participated in many demonstrations in support of Palestine, and gave testimonies revealing the psychological and health conditions that she faced. The Palestinians suffer from it to the media and during a session in the French Parliament.
Dr. Khaled bin Botrif considers that the evacuation of the Kamal Adwan and the Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals, which specialize in orthopedic treatment, means leaving hundreds of thousands of Jabalia residents without any medical care or coverage, explaining that the duration of artificial respiration varies according to the medical condition, injury, and damage to which the patient is exposed, and who may need it. For months if not years.
Kamal Adwan Hospital provides care for about 300,000 residents of Jabalia who refused to leave, due to the ongoing war and the absence of any safe roads for transportation, and although the building was bombed twice in December 2023 and last May, the residents and doctors were always able to start from scratch to restore it. To serve again.
Displacement and systematic extermination
In a press statement issued on Wednesday, Doctors Without Borders called on Israeli forces to end evacuation orders that lead to the forced displacement of residents, ensure the protection of civilians, and allow urgently needed humanitarian supplies to enter the north.
The organization indicated that summoning the residents of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia to go to the so-called overcrowded humanitarian zone, located between Al-Mawasi and Deir Al-Balah, where a million people live in inhumane conditions, is “part of the process of forced mass displacement,” adding that this “turns northern Gaza into An unlivable desert.
On the other hand, Dr. Pascal Andre believes that what is happening is the “starting point” that will allow the Israeli army to evacuate the entirety of northern Gaza, which constitutes “blatant complicity in genocide by Western countries committed to unlimited support for the extremist occupation government, and it is shameful to watch our political leaders “They are acting very cowardly and ignoring this crisis.”
Andre, who worked at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis for two weeks, denounced the fact that humanitarian aid did not actually arrive except partially, with 14 trucks out of 500, and that the trucks brought a very small number of medicines, in addition to the inability of medical support teams to enter the Gaza Strip.
Regarding her work experience in Gaza, nurse Iman Marafi said that caregivers were obligated to sort and count the martyrs who died directly or indirectly, because “when the occupation orders an evacuation, this means eliminating the killing of a patient on a ventilator indirectly, and all of this goes into Within the concept of systematic genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
As for the hospitals in southern Gaza that will receive patients coming from the north, Dr. Ben Boutrorif confirmed that the European Hospital and Nasser Hospital can provide treatment after the medical teams are able to operate them partially, indicating that moving to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital will not be easy, because it is located in Deir Al-Balah and takes It takes about 4 hours to reach it.