12/27/2024–|Last updated: 12/27/202407:55 PM (Mecca time)
On Friday, the Israeli occupation army forced the medical staff and patients at Kamal Adwan Hospital (northern Gaza Strip) to take off their clothes in the extreme cold, then took them to an unknown destination after storming it earlier and burning its facilities.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation published a video of the process of evacuating the hospital of those it said were suspects, showing a group of men stripped of their clothes and being led under the threat of a military vehicle, with their hands raised.
The Israeli army claimed that this hospital is considered a center for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the northern Gaza Strip, and militants worked from it throughout the war.
For its part, Hamas said, “The storming of Kamal Adwan Hospital by the criminal occupation army and the brutal massacres in its vicinity are Zionist war crimes.”
The Hamas statement held the occupation and its successor, the American administration, responsible for the lives of patients and medical staff in the hospital, calling on the international community and all countries and active parties to take action and break the cycle of silence and helplessness in the face of this genocide.
The occupation forces stormed the building hours after it was besieged, and asked the hospital administration to evacuate the medical staff, patients, and companions, in conjunction with gunfire and tank shelling surrounding it. She gave those present some time to come out to the square.
It is noteworthy that about 350 people are present inside the hospital, including 75 injured and sick people, in addition to their companions, and 180 medical staff and workers in the various departments of the hospital.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that about 50 people, including 5 medical staff in the hospital, were killed as a result of the occupation forces bombing a nearby building.
Hitting the health system
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the occupation burned the surgical operations departments, laboratory, maintenance, ambulance units and warehouses at Kamal Adwan Hospital, and that the fire began to spread to the entire building. She added that occupation army vehicles are surrounding the hospital, making the situation extremely dangerous.
The Ministry’s statement indicated that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya (hospital director) received a direct threat from the occupation forces stating that they would arrest him this time.
The statement considered what is happening in Kamal Adwan Hospital as a fatal blow dealt by the occupation to the remaining health system in the north of the Gaza Strip, stressing that this is consistent with the generals’ plan to end the presence of the population in this area.
Dr. Maher Shamiya, Assistant Undersecretary for Gaza Health, said that the Ministry does not know anything about the fate of the patients and medical staff who were inside Kamal Adwan Hospital.
In a press conference, Shamiya appealed to international organizations to stop the grave Israeli violations against patients and health facilities.
In a previous interview with Tel Aviv Tribune, the Director-General of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Munir Al-Barsh, said that the Israeli occupation burned Kamal Adwan Hospital, and yesterday used huge explosive robots to destroy it.
Al-Bursh added that contact with medical teams and ambulances was cut off, and no news has come from him since the raid.
For his part, Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, Director of Field Hospitals at the Ministry, said that stopping service at Kamal Adwan Hospital deprives the northern Gaza Strip of medical services, and added that targeting the hospital is part of the occupation’s scenario to destroy the health system in the besieged Gaza Strip.
New massacres
In other developments, the Ministry of Health confirmed that the occupation committed 3 massacres in Gaza, from which the bodies of 37 martyrs and 98 wounded arrived at hospitals in the past 24 hours.
The Ministry added that Dr. Ahmed Al-Zaharna, who works on the medical staff at the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Yunis, died as a result of the extreme cold, and his body was found inside his tent in the Al-Mawasi area, west of this city located in the southern Gaza Strip.
This incident comes in light of the difficult humanitarian conditions that the displaced in Gaza are experiencing, as the suffering of the residents of the Strip increases due to low temperatures and the lack of heating means in the tents.
On the other hand, medical sources said that 16 Palestinians were martyred in Israeli raids on several areas in the Gaza Strip since dawn today.
Meanwhile, neighborhoods in Gaza City were subjected to a series of Israeli raids targeting civilian homes.
The occupation forces launched intense artillery shelling on the Al-Zaytoun and Al-Sabra neighborhoods (south of the city), coinciding with shooting from Israeli vehicles and marches towards Palestinian homes there.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent also reported that a number of Palestinians were martyred and a number of others were injured, as a result of an air strike on a house in the Al-Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City.