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‘Instead of aid, we are receiving tanks’: Key hospital in northern Gaza comes under Israeli fire

Fri, 25 October 2024

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/instead-aid-receiving-tanks-key-153812366.html

‘We have to let some die’: Doctor says Gaza hospital is out of blood, medication

Israeli forces entered the compound of northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and opened fire after days of laying siege to the facility, health authorities in the enclave said.

The Gaza health ministry and the director of the hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, have told CNN that the Israeli military twice entered the hospital compound over the past 24 hours and fired at parts of the complex.

Health officials in Gaza have told CNN over the past few days that the facility is running low on supplies and in desperate need of aid as injured people from neighboring areas pour in.

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital director, said in a video that Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the hospital compound late Thursday and began firing at parts of the complex, adding that “all departments of the hospital are under direct shelling.”

“Instead of receiving aid, we are receiving tanks,” he said.

Kamal Adwan is one of three minimally operational hospitals in northern Gaza, and the closest to Israeli military activity in Beit Lahiya and the Jabalya Refugee Camp. Despite its limited capacity, it has been receiving most of the injured from the surrounding fighting.

World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that since the raid on Kamal Adwan hospital, WHO has “lost touch with the personnel there.”

“This development is deeply disturbing given the number of patients being served and people sheltering there,” Ghebreyesus said on X. Prior to Friday’s raid, he said, WHO and its partners managed to reach Kamal Adwan “amid hostilities in the vicinity, and transferred 23 patients and 26 caregivers to Al-Shifa Hospital.”

The Israeli military said in a statement Friday that its forces are operating in the area of the Kamal Adwan Hospital “based on intelligence information regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure,” adding that in the weeks preceding the operation, “the IDF facilitated the evacuation of patients from the area while maintaining emergency services.”
This picture taken Thursday shows an empty operating room in the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya the northern Gaza Strip. - AFP/Getty Images
This picture taken Thursday shows an empty operating room in the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya the northern Gaza Strip. - AFP/Getty Images

COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into the strip, said on Friday that with the help of UNICEF and WHO, several patients and their escorts were evacuated from the facility. The hospital was also given fuel, blood units and medical equipment.

But WHO’s Ghebreyesus stated on X that the hospital is housing about 200 patients, along with hundreds more seeking shelter there.
‘Shocked by the entry of bulldozers and tanks’

Maher Shamiya, an official with the Gaza health ministry, told CNN Friday that the Israeli military had demolished parts of the hospital’s wall. The oxygen station had also been damaged by Israeli fire, he said.

Shamiya said that the military had entered the hospital yard for a second time on Friday morning and had begun separating men from women.

“After that, it became impossible to communicate with anyone.”

In his video message, Safiya said he was “shocked by the entry of bulldozers and tanks into the hospital compound,” adding that tanks began firing at the upper floors, shattering windows and “creating an atmosphere of panic, terror, and fear.”

“Everyone in the hospital gathered in the stairwell; it was a very distressing scene,” he said.

One video showed Abu Safiya speaking from within the Intensive Care Unit, where patients and medical staff were huddled. He said that some severely injured people were dying. Abu Safiya said that a number of properties around the hospital had been set on fire.

Later Thursday night, a convoy of supplies from the World Health Organization reached the hospital, he said. Video showed a fuel tanker and other vehicles close to the facility.

Abu Safiya said the convoy delivered enough fuel for five days, as well as 200 units of blood and a few other supplies, but no food or water.

He said he had been in touch with Israeli officers.

“I explained the situation of the patients and the injured people in the hospital, emphasizing that their condition was extremely critical and that evacuation was necessary.”

The health ministry in Gaza told CNN Friday that 23 injured people had been evacuated in six ambulances. Abu Safiya said there were 70 critically injured people at the hospital needing evacuation.

Abu Safiya also told CNN that there was a large number of injured people in the Jabalya area of northern Gaza, which has been subjected to intense Israeli military operations in