At least four staff have been killed when several air strikes hit Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and Israeli forces stormed the facility, according to the hospital’s director and the enclave’s Civil Defence agency.
Hossam Abu Safieh, the director of one of the last functioning health centres in northern Gaza said a series of air strikes hit the northern and western sides of the hospital on Friday, “accompanied by intense and direct fire”.
No surgeons were left in the hospital, he added.Soldiers swept into the hospital and ordered all staff, patients and displaced people into its courtyard before allowing them hours later to return inside.
Richard Peeperkorn, spokesman of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations health agency, said “there was no official warning or evacuation order before the bombing of … the hospital, only rumours that spread panic.”
This comes just a week after the WHO had facilitated the entrance of an Indonesian emergency medical delegation to the hospital for the first time in 60 days. The facility had run out of most supplies, including fuel.
Abu Safieh said some hospital staff, including the emergency team, were ordered to leave the premises for good.
Peeperkorn said the fact that the attack on the hospital had taken place after Israeli authorities had allowed the entry of the medical delegation was particularly troubling for the staff and patients.
“Within one week, they feel forced, scared, whatever, to leave,” Peeperkorn said at a Geneva news briefing. “That is extremely concerning and should never happen.”
The hospital was “minimally functional”, he said.
According to the WHO, about 12,000 patients across Gaza need medical evacuation but only 78 have been evacuated so far.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the three main hospitals in northern Gaza are barely functioning and have been under repeated attack since Israel sent tanks into the northern town of Beit Lahiya and nearby Beit Hanoon and Jabalia in October.
The ministry on Friday accused the Israeli military of committing a “war crime” in Kamal Adwan Hospital by perpetrating “all forms of killing and violence inside and around it”.
“The injured who remained inside are in critical condition and need immediate medical care,” it added.
The Israeli army has not yet commented on the attack. Beit Lahiya has been the site of an intense military operation for the past two months that has escalated in recent days, forcing thousands of people to flee the bombing.
Hospitals, their staff, patients and vehicles are protected under international law.
An Israeli drone last week killed Ahmed al-Kahlout, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, as he was reportedly passing through the gate of the besieged hospital in northern Gaza.
Israel has accused Hamas fighters of using civilian buildings, including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, for operational cover. Hamas has denied this, accusing Israel of indiscriminate bombings and assaults.