The World Well being Group says Israel issued no warning for the strike on the hospital that killed 4 employees.
At the very least 4 employees have been killed when a number of air strikes hit Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and Israeli forces stormed the power, in line with the hospital’s director and the enclave’s Civil Defence company.
Hossam Abu Safieh, the director of one of many final functioning well being centres in northern Gaza stated a sequence of air strikes hit the northern and western sides of the hospital on Friday, “accompanied by intense and direct hearth”.
No surgeons had been left within the hospital, he added.
Troopers swept into the hospital and ordered all employees, sufferers and displaced folks into its courtyard earlier than permitting them hours later to return inside.
Richard Peeperkorn, spokesman of the World Well being Group (WHO), the United Nations well being company, stated “there was no official warning or evacuation order earlier than the bombing of … the hospital, solely rumours that unfold panic.”
This comes only a week after the WHO had facilitated the doorway of an Indonesian emergency medical delegation to the hospital for the primary time in 60 days. The ability had run out of most provides, together with gasoline.
Abu Safieh stated some hospital employees, together with the emergency group, had been ordered to go away the premises for good.
Peeperkorn stated the truth that the assault on the hospital had taken place after Israeli authorities had allowed the entry of the medical delegation was significantly troubling for the employees and sufferers.
“Inside one week, they really feel compelled, scared, no matter, to go away,” Peeperkorn stated at a Geneva information briefing. “That’s extraordinarily regarding and will by no means occur.”
The hospital was “minimally useful”, he stated. Based on the WHO, about 12,000 sufferers throughout Gaza want medical evacuation however solely 78 have been evacuated up to now.
Gaza’s Ministry of Well being stated the three major hospitals in northern Gaza are barely functioning and have been beneath repeated assault since Israel despatched tanks into the northern city of Beit Lahiya and close by Beit Hanoon and Jabalia in October.
The ministry on Friday accused the Israeli army of committing a “struggle crime” in Kamal Adwan Hospital by perpetrating “all types of killing and violence inside and round it”.
“The injured who remained inside are in vital situation and want fast medical care,” it added.
The Israeli military has not but commented on the assault. Beit Lahiya has been the positioning of an intense army operation for the previous two months that has escalated in current days, forcing hundreds of individuals to flee the bombing.
Emptying the hospitals
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, stated medical sources confirmed the Israeli army ordered sufferers out of the power whereas the Indonesian medical delegation was in a position to flee to al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza Metropolis.
“Evidently they’re making an attempt to empty northern Gaza of medical amenities and push civilians to maneuver in the direction of Gaza Metropolis with a view to impose important army management in these areas,” he stated.
Hospitals, their employees, sufferers and automobiles are protected beneath worldwide legislation.
An Israeli drone final week killed Ahmed al-Kahlout, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, as he was reportedly passing via the gate of the besieged hospital in northern Gaza.
Israel has accused Hamas fighters of utilizing civilian buildings, together with hospitals, colleges and condo blocks, for operational cowl. Hamas has denied this, accusing Israel of indiscriminate bombings and assaults.
