Israel raided a hospital in the north of Gaza, the Ministry said that the staff connected with them – National
Israeli forces on Friday stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, burning large parts and ordering scores of patients and hundreds of others to leave, officials said.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people, including 15 people in a single house in Gaza City, health and emergency workers said.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 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 army said it had 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, it said that the fighters of the Hamas group, which was in control of the Gaza Strip, were operated on in the hospital during the fighting.
Youssef Abu El-Rish, the Deputy Minister of Health in Hamas, said that the Israeli army burned the surgery department and the laboratory as well as the warehouse.
Like the Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals, Kamal Adwan has been repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces who have been attacking the northern edge of the Gaza Strip for weeks, Gaza medical workers said.
HUNDREDS HAVE BEEN ORDERED TO LEAVE THE HOSPITAL
Bursh said the soldiers ordered 350 people to leave Kamal Adwan and go to a nearby school to shelter families who left their homes. They included 75 patients, their friends, 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.
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Pictures circulating in Arab media, which Reuters could not immediately confirm, show 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 systematically destroyed, leading to speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed zone after the end of the war in Gaza.
Israel denies this, saying its operation is to prevent Hamas terrorists from regrouping.
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 conflict was sparked by a Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli figures.
