The last functioning hospital in northern Gaza has officially stopped functioning after Israeli forces raided it over the weekend, arresting all but two of its medical staff and damaging parts of the hospital premises.
The Kamal Adwan Hospital remained functioning after Israeli troops besieged the Indonesian and al-Awda hospitals earlier this month, becoming the only medical center servicing around 200,000 Palestinians in the area north of Gaza City. Around 150 people were taking shelter in the hospital after the Israeli military forced hundreds to leave displacement centers, including Kamal Adwan Hospital, early last week.
On Saturday, Israeli forces began to raid the hospital, ordering patients and medical staff to leave its wings and descend to the courtyard. Israeli soldiers then separated the men from the women and arrested dozens of Palestinians, including all of the hospital’s staff except one nurse and the hospital’s Director, Dr. Husam Abu Safiyeh.
The Israeli army claimed to have arrested 100 “terrorists,” which included dozens of hospital staff members. They were taken to an unknown location and their fate remains unknown.
Earlier on Friday, Israeli forces had opened fire on the hospital’s buildings, shattering windows and shelling the upper floors, which injured and killed several Palestinians inside.
“We were taking shelter at the Yemen clinic, and then Israeli quadcopters ordered us through speakers to leave, so we came to Kamal Adwan,” Razan Zuhud, a survivor from the Kamal Adwan raid, told Mondoweiss. “We were at Kamal Adwan for four days, then on Friday at 3:00 a.m. they [Israeli forces] began to shoot at us, and many were wounded. A girl was wounded in the arm. My nephew was wounded in the face and hand. My sister-in-law was wounded in the shoulder, and my brother was wounded in the chest,” she detailed.
“The occupation forces began to call for armed men to come out, but there were no armed men in the hospital, so nobody came out,” Marian Zuhud, another survivor, told Mondoweiss. “They [Israeli forces] began to shoot from all sides at the hospital, and bullets began to fly into the external clinic where I was, so I threw myself to the ground, and my son was wounded in the leg,” she explained.
“Then they called the doctor and ordered him to bring everybody out, so we came out of the building and they made us stand in three lines; men, women, and medical staff, and forced us to stand for more than an hour while tanks circled around us,” she went on. “Then they forced the men to strip down to their underwear and forced the women and children to walk, with tanks watching over us all the way to the Indonesian hospital, and from there to the south,” she recalled.
During the two-day invasion of the hospital, the son of Dr. Husam Abu Safiyeh was among the slain in the Israeli attack.
The Israeli army withdrew from the Kamal Adwan hospital late on Saturday after putting it out of service. Palestinians returned to the hospital following Israeli withdrawal, and some Palestinians began to clean up the floors and rooms in an attempt to rehabilitate the hospital. According to local sources, only three medics remained in the hospital after Israel’s withdrawal, including one doctor, Director Abu Safiyeh, who continued to look after dozens of remaining wounded patients.
Israel has been besieging and bombing northern Gaza since early October, attempting to force Palestinians to leave the area in line with the strategy put forward by senior Israeli military officials known as the “Generals’ Plan.” Simultaneously, Israeli politicians have supported settler calls to establish Israeli settlements in Gaza. Since the beginning of the Israeli offensive on northern Gaza, the Israeli assault has killed around 1,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
HOSPITALS ARE SO EASY TO HIT