Israeli forces on Friday stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern outskirts of Gaza, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to leave and leaving part of the site on fire, Health Ministry officials said.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people, including 15 in one house in Gaza City, health and emergency officials said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that communication with staff inside the hospital in Beit Lahiya, which has been under heavy pressure from Israeli forces for weeks, has been lost.
“The soldiers are inside the hospital now and they are burning it,” the department’s director Munir Al-Bursh said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it tried to limit casualties and “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel before the operation,” but did not provide details.
In a statement, he said that the fighters of Hamas, which was in control of the Gaza Strip, had operated in the hospital throughout the current war and had made this area an important base.
Youssef Abu El-Rish, the Hamas-appointed deputy minister of health, said Israeli forces burned down the surgery department, the operating room and the warehouse.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a small fire in an empty building inside the hospital was under control. “Regarding the allegations that the fire was caused by IDF shooting, the IDF is currently not aware of such an incident,” he said.
Like the Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals, Kamal Adwan has been hit by repeated attacks from the Israeli army, which has been shelling the northern border of the Gaza Strip for weeks, Palestinian doctors said.
Hundreds ordered to leave the hospital in northern Gaza
Bursh, the director of the department, said the army ordered 350 people to leave Kamal Adwan and go to a nearby school where they sheltered the families who fled. They included 75 patients, their companions and 185 medical staff.
Abu El-Rish said soldiers were transferring patients and medical staff to an Indonesian hospital, which was already out of commission due to heavy damage and had been evacuated by Israeli forces the previous day.
Pictures circulating in Palestinian and Arab media, which Reuters could not immediately confirm, showed smoke rising from Kamal Adwan’s compound.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya has been depopulated and destroyed, fueling speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed zone after the end of the war in Gaza.
Israel says its mission is to prevent Hamas terrorists from regrouping but will regain control of security in Gaza after the war.
On Thursday, health officials said five medical workers, including a pediatrician, were killed by Israeli fire at Kamal Adwan. The Israeli army said it was not aware of the strike at the hospital and that the report of the doctors’ deaths would be investigated.
In a statement, Hamas blamed Israel and the United States for the fate of those living in the hospital.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the area. Most of the 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by an attack led by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli figures.
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