'Israeli' army forces doctors and patients to head south on foot, half-naked, in the freezing cold. Photo: Palestine Chronicle.
Contact with the hospital has reportedly since been lost. Ambulances dispatched to the site have not returned, and the fate of those taken remains unknown.
The director of the hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, has been reportedly threatened with arrest during the Israeli invasion of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
In the early hours of the morning, Israeli forces surrounded the hospital with tanks under heavy fire from quadcopter-mounted machine guns.
Explosive devices planted around the facility were detonated at the northern gate and the back entrance, causing extensive damage and igniting fires in surrounding buildings.
At approximately 7:15 a.m. local time, Israeli officers used loudspeakers to order Dr. Abu Safiya, along with the injured, patients, and medical staff, to evacuate the hospital within 15 minutes, Quds News Network reported.
The Health Ministry in Gaza later confirmed that Israeli occupation forces forcibly removed 350 people from the premises, stripping patients, companions, and staff of their clothing in the freezing cold before transporting them to an undisclosed location.
Contact with the hospital has reportedly since been lost. Ambulances dispatched to the site have not returned, and the fate of those taken remains unknown.
Meanwhile, fires reportedly broke out in critical hospital departments, including the operating room, laboratory, and emergency ward, compounding the crisis.
Reports indicate that Israeli forces have specifically threatened to arrest Dr. Abu Safiya, claiming he is harboring Resistance fighters in the facility.
This assault is the latest in a series of repeated attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, which has been operating under dire conditions.
For months, the northern Gaza Strip has faced a total blockade, with Israeli forces preventing the entry of essential supplies, including medical equipment, water, and food.
Ongoing Genocide
The ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, 2023, has led to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. As the death toll among besieged and starved Palestinian civilians continues to rise daily, Israel is currently facing charges of genocide against Palestinians before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 45,399 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 107,940 have been wounded since the start of the war. The toll is expected to rise further, with at least 11,000 people still unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes across Gaza.
The war, which Palestinians call “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” began after a military operation carried out by Hamas on Israeli territory. Israel reports that 1,200 of its soldiers and civilians were killed during the initial attack on October 7. However, Israeli media have raised concerns that a significant number of Israeli casualties were caused by ‘friendly fire’ during the assault.
Human rights organizations, both Palestinian and international, have reported that the overwhelming majority of the casualties in Gaza are women and children. The ongoing violence has also exacerbated an acute famine, with thousands of children among the dead, highlighting the severity of the humanitarian disaster.
The war has displaced nearly two million people from their homes across Gaza, with the majority of the displaced forced into the already overcrowded southern region of the Strip. The population in Gaza remains trapped in the ongoing conflict, with little access to basic necessities such as food, water, and medical care.
