Israel forcibly evacuates Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital and detains medical staff

The last major hospital operating in northern Gaza was forcibly evacuated by Israeli forces on Friday after scores of people were reported killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting the area.

Medical staff, including the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, were also arrested, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday.

The director of the hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said about 50 people died in Israeli airstrikes near the hospital on Friday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had completed the targeted operation, calling the hospital a “terrorist haven for Hamas”.

On Friday, patients at the hospital were forcibly moved to a nearby Indonesian hospital which doctors warned was damaged and unfit due to a lack of generators and water.

15 critical patients, 50 caregivers and 20 health workers have been transferred, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Eid Sabbah, the head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan, told the BBC that the army ordered the evacuation around 07:00 on Friday, giving the hospital 15 minutes to move patients and staff to the courtyard.

Israeli soldiers then entered the hospital and evacuated the remaining patients, he said.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (ISA) alleged that intelligence had revealed that “terrorists” were using the Kamal Adwan hospital as a training center in Jabalia.

The IDF said that their police were attacked during the operation, special forces seized weapons from the hospital area and arrested 240 soldiers.

The IDF said it “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel” before starting the operation.

The deputy minister of health in Gaza, Dr. Yousef Abu-Al Rish, told the BBC that about 100 health workers were taken for questioning and it is said that some were tortured mentally.

The IDF did not comment on the latter allegations when contacted by the BBC.

It added: “Among the suspects questioned is the hospital director Kamal Adwan, who is suspected of being a Hamas terrorist, as well as Hamas engineering and anti-tank missile operatives.”

The IDF said it will “continue to operate in accordance with international law regarding medical facilities”.

The most seriously ill patients were transferred to a nearby Indonesian hospital, which was evacuated earlier in the week, which doctors described as ineffective.

“You can’t call it a hospital, it’s a shelter. It’s not equipped for patients,” said Dr. Abu-Al Rish on Friday.

Dr Sabbah from Kamal Adwan Hospital said: “It is dangerous because there are patients in the ICU who are unconscious and need ventilators and moving them will endanger them.

He said that seriously ill patients need to be transported by special vehicles.

The WHO said the attack “knocked out the largest health facility in northern Gaza”.

“Initial reports indicate that some areas of the hospital were badly damaged during the raid,” said a statement issued on Saturday.

The WHO added that an emergency operation is being planned at an Indonesian hospital to transport patients to southern Gaza for medical treatment.

Nadav Shoshani, the IDF’s international spokesman, said in a post on Friday evening at X that “a small fire broke out in an empty building inside a controlled hospital”.

This was when the IDF soldiers were not in the hospital, he said, adding that “after the initial tests, no connection was found between the IDF operation and the fire”.

Hospital director Kamal Adwan said on Friday about 50 people were killed, including five medical workers, in a series of Israeli airstrikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s statement said that the building opposite the hospital was targeted by Israeli warplanes, resulting in the death of a pediatrician and a lab technician, as well as their families.

He said one of the third workers who was working as a maintenance technician was targeted and killed while rushing to the site of the first strike.

Two paramedics from the hospital were 500m (1,640ft) away from the hospital when they were pointed out and killed by another strike, the statement continued, their bodies still lying on the road with no one able to reach them.

Israel’s military said on Friday morning it had “no information about strikes in the Kamal Adwan Hospital area” and was looking into reports that workers had been killed.

Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia has been under a strict Israeli blockade imposed on the northern parts of Gaza since October, when the army said it launched an attack to prevent Hamas from assembling there.

The UN said the area is “almost completely besieged” as Israeli forces severely block aid access to the area where about 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.

In recent days, the management of the hospital has issued requests to be protected, as they say that the facility has become a place where Israeli bombs and explosives are stored.

Oxfam said efforts by aid agencies to bring supplies to the area since October have been unsuccessful due to “deliberate delays and systematic obstruction” by the Israeli army.

Additional reporting by Shaimaa Khalil