Israeli forces gathered at the entrance to a major hospital in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, trapping more than a dozen medical staff inside and nearly putting one of the last functioning hospitals out of action, according to a doctor and Palestinian media.
For days the Israeli army has been bombing the area around the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, near the northernmost border of the territory. The tanks’ advance towards the northern entrances blocked access to the hospital, according to Dr Eid Sabbah, head of the hospital’s nursing staff.
“It’s considered practical now, because it’s besieged, non-operational,” said Dr. Sabbah, who had been at the hospital on Thursday. Many patients were undergoing kidney dialysis Thursday, he said, but they left before the military cut off access. “The military has reached the entrances,” he said.
The blockade of Kamal Adwan came two days after the Israeli army ordered patients and staff at Al Awda hospital near Jabaliya, another major medical center in northern Gaza, to evacuate on Wednesday and then raided the complex. About 30 people remained there, including medical staff and critical patients who could not be transferred. Israeli forces destroyed doors and damaged equipment, Gaza officials said.
The Israeli army has repeatedly besieged and attacked hospitals in Gaza, claiming that Hamas, the armed group that led the October 7 attack on Israel, uses them as shields, with its fighters operating inside the hospitals and from the tunnels below. Hamas and hospital administrators denied the claims.
The Israeli army took journalists to visit a hospital it had raided and provided documents they said prove its claims about Hamas and the hospitals. But there has been no independent verification of the claims.
Israeli bombings and ground troop incursions have put many of Gaza’s hospitals out of service and only a few remain, even partially, functional. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 500 health workers have been killed in seven and a half months of fighting and Israeli forces have arrested dozens of them.
In December, Israeli forces besieged and then stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital and arrested its director. Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in the enclave, was looted three times during the war.
Asked Friday about its forces in hospital, the Israeli army said it “does not comment on the deployment of its forces.”
Dr Sabbah said there were still 15 to 20 doctors and nurses at Kamal Adwan, but no patients.
“They know there are medical personnel inside,” he said, referring to the Israeli army. “We have not been informed if there will be a raid, but this can happen at any time.”
Earlier this week, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said on social media that Kamal Adwan had been shot four times, damaging the intensive care unit, reception, administration and the roof.
“In recent weeks, intense hostilities have reportedly occurred in the vicinity of the hospital, resulting in an increased influx of injured patients into the already overburdened facility,” Tedros wrote.
The Israeli army returned to areas of northern and central Gaza that it had previously captured, saying fighters from Hamas and other groups had returned. According to health officials, the new Israeli attacks have killed and injured dozens of people.
Fighting in the north means that many Palestinians who had previously fled that area but then returned to their homes have been forced to flee again, along with people who had remained in the area during the war, often in shelters.