Israeli forces surround Gaza hospital and order evacuation: hospital director

Staff at a hospital in northern Gaza say the building has been surrounded by Israeli forces and they are being ordered to evacuate along with all patients, after reports of a nearby airstrike that the local health ministry said killed about 50 people.

Israeli forces “are besieging Kamal Adwan Hospital and issuing orders for its evacuation,” hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said in a post on social media early on Friday.

Earlier on Friday, a video shared by nurse Walid Al Budi, who is also inside the hospital, showed a fire burning in the archive department of the hospital. Heavy gunfire can be heard in the background.

The hospital and its surroundings have come under an onslaught of Israeli attacks in recent months, Dr. Abu Safiya has said. Late on Thursday, about 50 people, including five medical workers, were killed after Israeli strikes nearby, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza and Dr. Abu Safiya.

“There are approximately 50 martyrs, including three of our medical staff, under the rubble of a building opposite Kamal Adwan Hospital after an airstrike by the occupying forces,” said Dr. Abu Safiya said.

Among the three hospital workers killed was paediatrician Dr. Ahmed Samour, who was on duty on Thursday but went to the building opposite the hospital – where he and his family live – when the strike hit, said Dr. Abu Safiya. A lab technician and a maintenance worker were also killed.

Two paramedics were killed in a strike near the hospital while on their way there, the director said. “Their bodies remain in the street where no one can reach them,” he added.

“The number of casualties reported in the media does not align with the information held” by the Israeli military, it said.

Israeli forces launched a renewed aerial and ground incursion in several parts of northern Gaza in early October this year, saying they were targeting a resurgent Hamas presence there. The two-month onslaught has razed streets to carpets of debris, killed entire families, and severely depleted food, water and medical stocks.

Earlier on Thursday a Palestinian nurse was left fighting for his life with a fractured skull after Israeli forces detonated a robot in front of the hospital, the Ministry of Health in the enclave said.

Israel says that Hamas operates inside and underneath hospitals, and is using them for military operations, including as command centers, weapons stores and to hide hostages. The Israelis have released footage they say is evidence of those Hamas operations. The videos do not offer definitive proof, and Hamas has denied the claims.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously said that Israeli authorities have repeatedly denied humanitarian access to Kamal Adwan Hospital and just this week said that a request to deploy and international emergency medical teams was denied by Israeli authorities, “despite the need for immediate surgical interventions for injured patients.”

Israeli organization Physicians for Human Rights has filed an urgent petition with Israel’s Hight Court “demanding an immediate cessation of ongoing attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza,” a statement from the organization said on Wednesday.

The “petition presents grave evidence of the catastrophic impact on the hospital and its staff over the past year,” the statement says.

“Evacuating Kamal Adwan Hospital would abandon thousands of residents in northern Gaza without access to medical treatment for the sick and injured. Many of the patients currently receiving care cannot be safely evacuated due to constant gunfire in the vicinity and the military’s restrictions on ambulance operations,” the Israeli human rights organization added.

Ibrahim Dahman contributed to this report