Regional countries pillory Israel’s burning of Gaza hospital
Israel’s burning of the only operating hospital in the northern Gaza Strip and forcing patients and medical staff to evacuate the health facility has drawn condemnations from regional countries, which called the move a serious crime and a flagrant violation of international law.
The hospital in northern Gaza was forcibly evacuated by the Israeli military on Friday after dozens of people were reportedly killed in Israeli strikes targeting the area.
Medical staff, including the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, have also been detained, Gaza health officials said on Saturday.
Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital director, was among the first to report that about 50 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital on Friday.
The Israeli military claimed it was carrying out an operation in the area, alleging the hospital was a Hamas stronghold.
On Friday, patients at the hospital were forcibly moved to the nearby Indonesian Hospital which doctors warn is damaged and unsuitable due to a lack of power generators and water.
Seriously ill patients were moved to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, itself evacuated earlier in the week, which medics have described as non-functional.
“You can’t call it a hospital, it’s more of a shelter. It’s not equipped for patients,” Gaza’s deputy minister of health, Abu-Al Rish, said on Friday.
Sabbah, from Kamal Adwan Hospital, said, “It’s dangerous because patients in the ICU department are in a coma and in need of ventilation machines and moving them will put them in danger.”
The World Health Organization said the raid “has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service.”
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” it posted on X on Friday.
Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia has been under a tightening Israeli blockade imposed on parts of northern Gaza since October, when the military said it had launched an offensive to stop Hamas from regrouping there.
The UN has said the area is under a “near-total siege” as the Israeli military heavily restricts access of aid deliveries to an area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) strongly condemned the Israel’s attack on the hospital, saying that it is part of Israel’s ongoing war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people.
Many regional countries including Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar as well as the Palestinian presidency strongly condemned the Israel’s attack on the hospital.