Some departments that were important to the operation of the hospital were completely destroyed. Israeli forces also captured medics and the director of the hospital, adds the World Health Organization.
Friday’s Israeli military operation knocked out the last major hospital in the north of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. According to local officials, the army also detained the director of the hospital, reports TASR according to the AFP agency.
“The occupying forces took dozens of medical workers from the Kamal Adwan Hospital into custody, including its director,” the Ministry of Health, controlled by the Palestinian movement Hamas, said in a statement. According to the WHO, some important departments were completely destroyed during the attack.
The Israeli army says it is targeting infrastructure and Hamas fighters in the area of the hospital. In a statement without evidence, according to AP, she repeated the claim that militants are operating inside the hospital itself. According to the army, the facility has become “a key stronghold of terrorist organizations and continues to be used as a hideout for terrorist groups”. Hospital workers reject such accusations.
Israel is said to be trying to prevent the grouping
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Israeli soldiers forced staff and patients to gather in the courtyard and undress in the cold weather. Some are said to have been taken by soldiers to an unknown location, while some patients were sent to a nearby Indonesian hospital, which was shut down by an Israeli airstrike earlier this week.
Since the beginning of October, Israel has intensified its air and ground offensive in the north of the Gaza Strip. He says the aim is to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping. Before the start of the latest operation near the hospital, the army said its troops “enabled the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical staff”.
The AP writes that since October, the Israeli offensive has practically closed the northern areas of Gaza – Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya – and razed large parts of these neighborhoods to the ground. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the area, but thousands are believed to remain in the catchment area of Kamal Adwan Hospital and two other hospitals.
