Four doctors were killed at Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza on Friday, after Israeli forces stormed the compound, killing and injuring dozens of people in surrounding areas, eyewitnesses told CNN.
Israeli troops also forced health care workers and patients to leave the facility, and destroyed critical medical supplies, according to a statement by Dr Hussam Abu Saifya, the hospital director.
In the early hours of Friday, the Israeli military sent two plain clothed messengers into the hospital, who told people over a megaphone to evacuate, Abu Saifya added. The military detained a “large number” of young men in the two-hour raid, including health workers and Palestinians who had sought refuge, added Abu Saifya.
Israeli quadcopters unleashed a blaze of “intense and direct fire” as military vehicles encircled the facility, Abu Saifya recalled, before corralling patients, displaced people and health workers in the courtyard and forcibly taking them to a checkpoint further south, towards Gaza City.
“Initially, there was a series of airstrikes on the northern and western sides of the hospital, accompanied by intense and direct fire,” Abu Saifya said in a statement on Friday. “They approached me and ordered me to evacuate all patients, displaced persons, and medical staff, gathering everyone in the hospital’s courtyard and forcibly taking them to the checkpoint.
“In the morning, we were shocked to see hundreds of bodies and wounded individuals in the streets surrounding the hospital,” the doctor added. “The situation is catastrophic in northern Gaza, particularly in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital.”
Members of an Indonesian medical delegation – the only team performing surgery at Kamal Adwan – were among those forced to leave and not allowed to return…
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied striking or operating within Kamal Adwan Hospital in a statement to CNN, instead saying that its forces fought “against terror infrastructure and terrorists” in the nearby Jabalya area.
“IDF troops continue to operate against terror infrastructure and terrorists in the Jabaliya area, including adjacent to the Kamal Adwan Hospital,” it said. “Simultaneously, in recent weeks, coordinated efforts with international organizations have been underway in order to transfer patients, companions, and medical staff to other hospitals which are operating in the Gaza Strip.”
The statement added that the IDF is in “continuous contact” with Kamal Adwan to deliver supplies and equipment. According to COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages policy for the Palestinian territories and the flow of aid into the strip, 161 aid trucks entered Gaza on December 4.
There was no official evacuation order ahead of the raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to a United Nations official. “People started to climb the wall to escape, and this panic attracted IDF fire,” the UN health’s agency representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Rik Peeperkorn, said on Friday….
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