Israeli troops burn hospital in northern Gaza after forcibly removing staff and patients, officials say

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops have stormed one of the last hospitals operating in the north aerate on Friday, starting fires and forcing many employees and patients outside to strip winter weatherdeclared the Ministry of Health from the territory.

Kamal Adwan Hospital he was hit several times over the past three months by Israeli troops who have been waging an offensive against Hamas fighters in the surrounding neighborhoods, according to the staff. The ministry said a strike on the hospital a day earlier had killed five medical staff.

The Israeli military said it was carrying out operations against Hamas infrastructure and militants in the area of ​​the hospital, without giving details. He repeated claims that Hamas fighters were operating inside Kamal Adwan, but he did not provide any evidence. Hospital officials denied this.

The Health Ministry said troops forced medical staff and patients to gather in the courtyard and remove their clothes. Some were taken to an unknown location, while some patients were sent to the nearby Indonesian hospital, which was shut down after an Israeli raid this week.

Israeli troops during raids frequently carry out mass detentions, stripping men to their underwear for questioning in what the military says is a security measure as they search for Hamas fighters. The Associated Press does not have access to Kamal Adwan, but plainclothes armed members of the Hamas-run police force — tasked with maintaining security and officially separate from the group’s armed wing — were seen in other hospitals.

The Health Ministry said Israeli troops also set fire to several parts of Kamal Adwan, including the laboratory and surgery department. It said 25 patients and 60 medical workers remained in the hospital out of 75 patients and 180 staff who were there. The account could not be independently confirmed and attempts to reach hospital staff were unsuccessful.

“Fire is burning everywhere in the hospital,” an unidentified staff member said in an audio message posted on the social media accounts of hospital director Hossam Abu Safiya. Staff said some evacuated patients were cut off from oxygen. “Right now there are patients who could die at any moment,” she said.

A largely isolated north

Since October, Israel’s offensive has virtually closed off the northern Gaza areas of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and leveled large parts of them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to leave, but thousands are believed to remain in the area, home to Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals. Troops attacked Kamal Adwan in October, and on Tuesday troops stormed and evacuated the Indonesian hospital.

The area has been cut off from food and other aids for months raising fears of famine. The UN says Israeli troops allowed only four humanitarian deliveries into the area between December 1 and December 23.

The Israeli rights group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel filed a petition with Israel’s High Court of Justice this week asking for a halt to the military attacks on Kamal Adwan. It warned that the forced evacuation of the hospital would “abandon thousands of residents in northern Gaza”. Before Thursday’s latest deaths, the group documented five other employees killed by Israeli fire since October.

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza by vowing to destroy Hamas after the group’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which the militants killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250. About 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel’s nearly 15-month campaign of bombing and offensives has devastated the territory’s health sector. A year ago, he raided about hospitals in northern Gaza, including Kamal Adwan, the Indonesian Hospital and al-Awda, saying they served as bases for Hamas, although they presented little evidence.

Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, and injured more than 108,000 others, according to the Health Ministry. Its number does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Cold deaths in Gaza

Over 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have been driven from their homes, most of them now sheltering in sprawling and squalid tent camps in southern and central Gaza.

Children and adults, many barefoot, huddled on the cold sand Friday in tents whose plastic and canvas sheets flapped in the wind. Overnight temperatures can drop into the low 40s Fahrenheit (below 10 Celsius), and sea spray from the Mediterranean Sea can dampen tents just steps away.

“I swear to God, me and their mother covered ourselves with a blanket and covered them (their five children) with three blankets that we took from the neighbors. The waters of the sea drowned everything that was ours,” said Muhammad al-Sous, displaced from Beit Lahiya in the north.

Children gather plastic bottles to make a fire and huddle under blankets as their only set of clothes is washed and dried in the wind.

At least three children in Gaza have died from exposure to the cold in the last few days, the doctors there said.

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Khaled and Keath reported from Cairo.

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