فاس نيوز ميديا جريدة الكترونية جهوية تعنى بشؤون و أخبار جهة فاس مكناس – متجددة على مدار الساعة
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Friday that the last major operational hospital in northern Gaza is now “out of service” following an Israeli army raid against Hamas fighters near the facility, which was reportedly stormed according to the Palestinian Islamist movement.
“This morning’s raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital has rendered this last major health center in northern Gaza out of service,” located in Beit Lahia, the World Health Organization (WHO) denounced on X. “Initial reports indicate key services were burned and destroyed during the raid. Sixty healthcare staff and 25 patients are in critical condition,” added the international organization, headquartered in Geneva.
The Israeli army had announced on Friday that it launched an operation against Hamas fighters near this hospital, which plays a crucial role in the Gaza Strip’s exhausted health services, devastated by 14 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
This operation near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia comes a day after the hospital’s director, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, announced the death of five staff members in an Israeli strike.
In its statement on Friday, the Israeli army described the hospital as a “stronghold of terrorist organizations… used as a hideout by terrorists.” Based on intelligence information, Israeli forces launched an operation near the hospital, according to the army. “Troops are conducting targeted operations” and trying to avoid affecting civilians, patients, and medical staff, it added.
Since October 6, Israel has intensified its ground and air offensive in northern Gaza to prevent, according to the army, Hamas fighters from regrouping.
Before launching the operation near the hospital, the army stated that its troops had “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical staff” from the facility.
However, Hamas said that “the occupation army stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, forcing medical staff, patients, wounded, and displaced persons to evacuate.” It accused Israeli forces in a statement of “detaining the evacuated people.”
“Hamas holds the occupation fully responsible for the lives of patients, wounded, and medical staff, whom it arrested and took to an unknown location,” the movement added. All communication with the hospital has been cut off, according to Hamas.
The Israeli army regularly accuses Hamas of using hospitals as command centers to launch attacks against its forces. Hamas denies these accusations.
On Friday, the Palestinian movement “categorically denied” in a statement “any military activity or presence of resistance fighters in the Kamal Adwan Hospital.”
“The enemy’s lies about the hospital are intended to justify the abominable crime committed today by the occupation army, which evacuated and set fire to all hospital services as part of a plan of extermination and forced displacement,” it added, calling for a UN investigation commission on “the scale of the crime” by the army in northern Gaza.
Citing the hospital director, the Health Ministry of the Hamas-run Palestinian territory claimed that the Israeli army had “set fire to all surgical services of the hospital.”
On Friday morning, the hospital housed about 350 people, including 75 wounded and sick, as well as 180 medical staff members, according to the facility’s director.
Witnesses in the area told AFP that the hospital had been evacuated and that hundreds of people living nearby had been “forced to take refuge at Al-Fakhoura School and the Indonesian Hospital” in Jabalia.
In response to an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023, the Israeli army launched a devastating offensive against the Palestinian territory it has besieged since. According to the Health Ministry of the Hamas government, at least 45,436 Palestinians have died there.
The Hamas attack launched from the Gaza Strip resulted in the death of more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
