The head of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza and officials from the local civil defense agency reported that multiple Israeli strikes have targeted the facility, one of the few operational healthcare centers remaining in the region.
“There has been a sequence of air strikes on the northern and western peripheries of the hospital, coupled with heavy and precise gunfire,” stated Hossam Abu Safieh, noting that four staff members lost their lives and there are no remaining surgeons at the facility.
The Israeli military has not yet provided any comments regarding the strikes.
Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defense, indicated that Israeli forces entered Kamal Adwan hospital earlier today, evacuated patients, and detained several Palestinians.
Since the onset of the conflict, the Israeli military has repeatedly raided Kamal Adwan hospital, where the director of its intensive care unit, Ahmad al-Kahlout, was killed in an air strike last month.
This latest incursion by the military comes shortly after the UN’s World Health Organization announced that an emergency medical team had finally reached the hospital after a 60-day absence.
Victims are treated inside the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in Gaza
With little to no humanitarian aid reaching Kamal Adwan since the beginning of the Israeli offensive in northern Gaza in early October, the hospital has depleted most of its supplies, including fuel.
The Israeli military has stated that its operations in the north are aimed at preventing Hamas militants from regrouping in the area.
Human rights organizations have accused the Israeli government of enacting a strategy to evacuate or starve those who remain there, an allegation that Israel denies.
Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer declared that residents in the northern region would not be permitted to return as long as military actions are ongoing.
The conflict in Gaza was ignited by Hamas’s assault on October 7, 2023, leading to the deaths of 1,208 individuals, primarily civilians, according to an AFP count based on official records.
The Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza has resulted in at least 44,612 fatalities, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory, which the UN considers credible.
