The Bombing and Burning of Hospitals - their Patients and Doctors - is a grave war crime – yet Biden & Starmer say nothing
This is the Final Kamal Adwan hospital video from their brave doctors
Breaking video: Kamal Adwan doctor’s final dramatic
message as Israelis invade N Gaza’s last hospital
The Bombing of Kamal Adwan Hospital
Kamal Adwan ICU in N Gaza ablaze after ‘night of horror’ under Israeli attack
When the Hungarian Arrow Cross
fascists murdered, in January 1945, 92 medical staff and patients at two Jewish hospitals in
Maros Street and Varosmajor Street in Budapest, Eugene Levai described it as ‘one of the blackest deeds of the Nyilas terrorism.’ (Black Book on the Martyrdom of
Hungarian Jewry p.419).
Two Nice Jewish Boys Join the Hitler Youth
Those who committed these
atrocities were later hanged by the Peoples Courts. Those Israeli government ministers
who were responsible for these atrocities, together with their military
commanders, deserve a similar fate.
See Murdered on the Verge of Survival:
Massacres in the Last Days of the Siege of Budapest, 1945
The destruction of the Czech
village of Lidice in June
1942 in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhardt Heydrich and the murder of
its children and 173 men above the age of 15 stands out among the most infamous
of Nazi deeds. As does the wiping out of the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane.
Israel’s attack and
storming of Kamal Adwan hospital and other hospitals in Gaza is no different from what the
Nazis and their Hungarian accomplices did. Israel’s military burned to the
ground the Indonesia hospital and utterly destroyed the main Al Shifa hospital.
All in order that Northern Gaza can be ‘cleansed’ (another Nazi term for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians) whilst not only did the West look on but
supplied the weaponry to do it.
Kamal Adwan Al Jazeera
The destruction of Gaza’s hospitals takes place under the pretext that they are Hamas bases.
Not one single photograph has been
produced of a Palestinian fighter inside a hospital. Anyone who pretends
otherwise is nothing other than a holocaust enabler.
Under International Humanitarian Law the principle is clear: Hospitals are protected, because of their life-saving function for wounded & sick.
— ICRC (@ICRC) November 2, 2023
Yes, they can lose their protection, but this is not a free license to attack. @CDroegeICRC, ICRC Chief Legal Officer, explains 👇 pic.twitter.com/ZbhHkvmd0y
The International Committee of the Red Cross states that
According to international
humanitarian law (IHL), health establishments and units, including hospitals,
should not be attacked. This protection extends to the wounded and sick as well
as to medical staff and means of transport.
The Death of Palestinian Babies
Attacks on hospitals are
particularly heinous yet not one of our war criminal leaders has protested
it. One would not expect Starmer to say anything. Nothing that the Palestinians
have suffered merits any sympathy from this cardboard cut out of a politician.
The only thing that stirs this dessicated politician is October 7and Israeli deaths.
Just 2 babies died according to
official Israeli statistics – both accidentally. Only one baby was killed in Kibbutz Beeri, 10-month-old
Mila Cohen, whose mother survived. The death was accidental as was another death.
Compare this to the deliberate massacre by Israel of babies and children of all
ages.
Israeli military storms Kamal Adwan Hospital
By
Published On 27 Dec 2024
· The Kamal Adwan Hospital’s director said about 50
people have been killed, including five medical staff, in
an Israeli air strike on a building near the hospital in northern Gaza. Israel
ordered the evacuation of the hospital, endangering the remaining nearly 75
patients there.
·
A fourth Palestinian baby has died due to extreme cold in Gaza over the
past 72 hours, as hundreds of thousands of people displaced by Israel’s war
struggle to keep warm in flimsy tents.
·
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least
45,436 Palestinians and wounded 108,038 since October 7, 2023.
Explosive Robots at the Gates of the Kamal Adwan Hospital
‘We will leave when the last Palestinian
leaves’: The defiant last stand of the doctors of Kamal Adwan Hospital
For 75
days, doctors in this north Gaza hospital have withstood the Israeli army's
attempts to forcibly evacuate them and their patients. In the face of death,
the doctors are still refusing to leave, even as the army steps up its attacks.
By December 25, 20, Mondoweiss
Patients are trying to sleep inside the Kamal Adwan
Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. But just outside, they can see a
remote-controlled robot carrying explosives sent by the Israeli army. It’s only
a matter of time before the bomb is detonated. Tanks and bulldozers move around
the hospital and in front of its entrances all day long. The sounds of
explosions and bullets do not stop.
Inside the hospital, there is a constant state of
panic. With each new explosion or round of fire, patients flee from one wing of
the hospital to another, crowding in the narrow hospital corridors to sleep
like sardines, hoping that they will be safe.
This is the current reality at the Kamal Adwan
Hospital in Beit Lahia, one of the last semi-functioning hospitals in northern
Gaza. For 75 days, the hospital has been under siege by the Israeli army, which
has banned the entry of food, medicine, and water, while periodically cutting
off communications inside the hospital, preventing doctors and patients from
communicating with the outside world. Not to mention the constant
bombings.
In recent days, the army has stepped up its attacks on
the hospital. According to witnesses, the Israeli army has deployed the use of
remote-controlled robots, which approach the hospital gates, the surrounding
areas, and its courtyard, dropping boxes filled with explosives that are later
detonated remotely. The Israeli army has attacked the
hospital dozens of times over the past 10 days, and in addition to the
remote-controlled explosives, the army has been firing live bullets and
artillery fire at the hospital, and has also been using drones and
quadcopters in its attacks.
“Yesterday
we went through a difficult night that no one can imagine. At dawn, there was
violent and direct targeting of the intensive care unit’,
Dr. Muhammad Barid told Mondoweiss
from inside the ICU at the hospital on Tuesday, December 24.
“Some of the effects are still present. Shells fell and set fires
inside the department. The department is crowded with cases because the
intensive care unit in Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only department operating in
the northern Gaza Strip,” he said.
Dr. Barid highlights the grim reality facing patients
in the intensive care unit, emphasizing that most patients are heavily
dependent on ventilators, and require constant care from medical
staff.
The intensive care unit, which is designed to
accommodate only 16 patients, is now treating 47 individuals. Due to lack of
supplies and a staff who are stretched thin, patients receive treatment only
once a day instead of the usual three times, while patients with wounds
struggle are given just one dressing change without further evaluation. Those
inside, including both patients and medical staff, rely on limited supplies
that have managed to enter the hospital via humanitarian organizations and
medical delegations amidst the prolonged siege.
Ahmed Al-Barawi, a wounded man lying in the hospital
recounts the horrific experiences that have made it impossible for him to
recover. He expresses that the dire circumstances he faces—due to treatment
shortcomings and a lack of essential medical supplies—has transformed the
hospital into something unrecognizable.
“It’s a hospital
in name only. The [Israeli] occupation has stripped even the most basic levels
of care from us,” he said. “We
suffer daily due to inadequate medical supplies, receiving only what amounts to
first aid. Meanwhile, the shelling and continuous gunfire at the hospital add
to our despair,” Al-Barawi explains.
He details the events from the previous day, December
23, when the hospital and its vicinity were targeted over ten times. According
to him, electric generators were set ablaze, buildings were damaged, and
patients were harmed by shattered doors and glass.
“Yesterday, they placed a robot next to the hospital and detonated it.
We had to flee from our beds and spent the whole night in the corridors.
Shelling and shooting were everywhere.”
Al-Barawi continues: “The hospital has become a place where people die rather than receive
care,” adding that not only is medicine in short supply, but so are food
and water.
“We urge the world to pay attention, to stand with us even just once,
and help us against this enemy and this siege—the pain we experience is
unbearable for any human being. We are humans, if you know what humanity means,
not the animals the Israeli occupation claims we are.”
Dr. Barid expresses profound frustration at the lack
of international response to months-long calls from
doctors at the hospital to stop the army’s attacks.
“There is no justification that gives anyone the right to target such
places. We have repeatedly appealed to the world to provide protection for
hospitals, but unfortunately, no one responded. There are no messages left to
send.hank you to the world,” he finishes sarcastically.
‘We will fulfill our oath as doctors’
The current situation at the Kamal Adwan Hospital
underscores the dire situation facing healthcare providers and patients across
Gaza. What were once places of healing have been turned into war zones by
Israel.
Since October 5, the Israeli army has been carrying
out an ethnic cleansing campaign in north Gaza, as part of ‘The General’s
Plan’. Starting in Jabalia, the army imposed a crippling siege aimed at starving
residents out, while also intensifying its military attacks. Since then, the
army has extended the siege and attacks to all areas in the north, such as Beit
Lahia and Beit Hanoun, forcing people to go south, towards Gaza City. It is
estimated that of the more than 200,000 inhabitants of northern Gaza that were
present as of October this year, some thousands remain.
Part of the army’s strategy to force people out of the
north, residents say, is by further crippling the already devastated healthcare
system. Throughout the siege, the army has stepped up its attacks on civil
defense teams and first responders, bombing their outposts and attacking their
crews, essentially making it impossible for the wounded to be rescued or
treated.
As the last functioning hospital in north Gaza, the
Kamal Adwan Hospital has become one of the primary
targets of the Israeli military operations. According to doctors at
the hospital, over the course of 75 days, the Israeli army has killed 17
medical personnel from the hospital, injured over 50 others, and arrested 46
individuals from the hospital grounds.
Skwawkbox Video Dr Hussam Abu Safiya
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital director, who
himself has been targeted by
Israeli army bullets, says the attacks on the hospital are unfounded. He noted
that the Israeli army had previously raided the hospital’s ICU in November
2023, at which time no evidence was found to justify Israel’s claims that
hospitals were being used by Hamas or other armed groups. The Israeli army is “aware of its [the hospital’s] purpose, as
there are no other facilities providing such care in the northern Gaza Strip,”
Dr. Abu Safiya states,describing the targeting of the hospital as violent and
terrifying, likening it to a war zone.
“I don’t know why we are being bombed in this way. It is clear that the
bombing was done with the aim of killing, based on the level of fire on the
walls,” Abu Safiya says. “This is a dangerous matter, and we have asked the
world, and are still asking, for international protection.”
“What we seek is to neutralize the hospital from bombing and targeting.
This facility provides humanitarian services and is filled only with patients,
companions, the injured, and medical staff. Why we are being bombed in this
way, I don’t know,” he says.
Since the onset of the Israeli army’s invasion of the
northern Gaza Strip in early October, Dr. Abu Safiya has been actively urging
for measures to be taken to safeguard the lives of patients and assist the
wounded. However, in the wake of no international response, the Israeli army
has continued to enforce a suffocating siege on the facility in an effort to
drive the patients and doctors out, along with all residents who refuse to
leave northern Gaza.
“For 75 days, we have been calling on the world for international
protection for the health system. These are laws established by the Geneva
Conventions, which stipulate the protection of the health system,” Dr. Abu
Safiya says. “Where are these laws? What sin did we commit in this hospital to
be bombed and killed in this way?”
As Dr. Abu Safiya speaks, two massive explosions can
be heard in the background.
This is the case all day and night; we are bombarded with these bombs. The shrapnel is flying as we speak in front of the world. We are bombed all day and night like this, either around the hospital or inside it.
Despite the horrific conditions at the hospital,
doctors inside Kamal Adwan insist that they are dedicated to the humanitarian
oath they took when they began their medical careers, vowing to provide care to
those in need. They are resolute about remaining in the hospital, refusing to
leave under any circumstances.
“We will leave when the last Palestinian leaves the northern Gaza
Strip,” Dr. Abu Safiya declared defiantly. “We will stay and serve those who
are here. This is a humanitarian mission, and our message to the world is that
we deliver humanitarian care and should not be obstructed. We committed
ourselves to providing for those in need, and we will fulfill our oath as
doctors here at Kamal Adwan Hospital.”
Mohammed Al-Sharif contributed to this report from inside
the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern
Gaza.
‘I wish everyone safety. If fate allows we’ll
speak to you again. Please forgive us if we fell short in anyone’s rights’
– 27/12/2024
Doctors have been forced out of the last real medical facility in
northern Gaza, the Kamal Adwan hospital, after occupation forces invaded the
hospital, arrested some staff and forced out others at gunpoint with only ten
minutes to move, after they refused to leave their patients. One of its
doctors, Dr Waleed Alboudi, managed to transmit a last desperate, moving
message to the world – asking for prayers and forgiveness if they ‘fell short in anyone’s rights’:
Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital puts ICU out of service
Yesterday, Israel murdered at least five of
the hospital’s staff and numerous other civilians around the hospital, through
airstrikes and robotic bombs, some of the doctors targeted along with their
families as they brought them food, as a message from the hospital’s director,
Dr Hussam Abu Saffiya, explained last night:
Staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital describe night of ‘horror’ amid
Israel’s attack
Gaza doctors and other staff have
frequently been detained and tortured, in some cases to death, raising fears
for the fate of those detained now.
Al Jazeera broadcast the first
news of the forced evacuation – yet another war crime by the occupation regime:
Israel is a rogue state and a
terror state, supported shamefully by UK PM Keir Starmer and his cronies, who
will not even mention its crimes let alone condemn them.
For 75 days, doctors in this north Gaza hospital have withstood the Israeli army's attempts to forcibly evacuate them and their patients. In the face of death, the doctors are still refusing to leave, even as the army steps up its attacks. https://t.co/6OmFTzA8mP
— Mondoweiss (@Mondoweiss) December 26, 2024
New testimony claims to reveal the moments that led to death of Dr Adnan al Bursh
Five journalists killed in Israeli strike near Gaza hospital
Popular Israeli podcasters call to ‘erase every living being’ in Gaza and West Bank – Middle East Eye
Half of Gaza’s children are so traumatised by Israel’s war on them that
they wish for death as a release – and 96% believe death is
imminent, according to a new study by the War Child Alliance.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian children have been murdered
by Israel since October last year – some by bombs, missiles and hunger, others by sniper bullets
– and many more have been maimed – Gaza has the largest population of child
amputees in history, according to the United Nations in October this year, with
many more severely burned or otherwise wounded.
Below are just a few examples of Israel’s atrocities against
Gaza’s children in the last week. Don’t look away – and if you have not
realised yet that Israel is committing genocide and this does not convince you,
get help:
Shattering testimony from Gaza surgeon ignored by media and politicians
Surgeon breaks down in
parliament explaining how IDF drones target children
Imagine an
experienced British surgeon, recently returned from Ukraine, breaking down in
front of a committee of British MPs as he related how Russian forces had been
deliberately targeting Ukrainian children.
Imagine the
surgeon had had to operate in desperate conditions on young children who had
been lying injured after a Russian bombing attack and who were then ‘picked
off’ by Russian drones. The atrocity claims would be headline news all across
Western media.
Here, in
the real world, the horrific testimony
of a British surgeon who had operated on children in Gaza targeted by Israeli
drones after Israeli bombing attacks– something that happened ‘day after day
after day’ – has been largely blanked.
Professor
Nizam Mamode, a retired NHS surgeon who recently returned after working at
Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, said he had ‘never seen anything on this
scale, ever’. He has worked in a number of conflicts around the world,
including the genocide in Rwanda. Prof Mamode worked for a month between August
and September as a volunteer for the charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians. In
a hearing on the
humanitarian situation in Gaza, he told members of the UK parliamentary International Development
Committee:
Israel's murder of Palestinian children
Drones
would come down and pick off civilians, children. This is not an occasional
thing. This was day after day after day operating on children who would say, “I
was lying on the ground after a bomb dropped and this quadcopter [a small,
remotely-piloted helicopter drone] came down and hovered over me and shot me”.
Prof Mamode
told MPs he saw children with sniper injuries to the head. He also noted that
the pellets fired by most drones were more destructive than bullets which would
go straight through a victim’s body. Instead, the pellets would bounce around
inside bodies, creating much more extensive damage.
A
seven-year-old boy, who had been caught up in an Israeli bombing and then
deliberately hit by an Israeli drone, came into the hospital with his stomach
hanging out of his chest. He had further injuries to his liver, spleen, bowel
and arteries.
He survived
that and went out a week later. Whether he is still alive, I don’t know.
The surgeon
broke down three times during his testimony. He described one case of an
8-year-old girl who was bleeding to death during surgery:
I asked for
a swab and they said, “No more swabs”.
As he spoke
to the MPs, he was momentarily overcome with emotion. Simple medical
items, such as sterile gloves and painkillers, are in short supply because of
Israel’s blocking of aid into Gaza, said Prof Mamode. This also applies to
basic items like soap and shampoo, leading to unhygienic conditions. He added:
I saw I
don’t know how many wounds with maggots in [them]. One of my colleagues took
maggots out of a child’s throat in intensive care. There were flies in
operating theatre landing in wounds.
He told MPs
that he had spent the entire month in the hospital, partly because it was not
safe to travel around. But also because, in January 2024, Israel had bombed the
guest house used by Medical Aid for Palestinians. The surgeon believes that
this was done deliberately by Israeli forces:
All of
those guest houses are in the Israeli army’s computers and are designated safe
houses, so my assumption is that it was a deliberate attack and the aim behind
it is to discourage aid workers from coming.
He said the
same applied to five Israeli attacks on UN convoys, including one while he was
in Gaza.
Labour MP
and committee chair Sarah Champion asked Prof Mamode if he meant that rogue
snipers were shooting at the armoured vehicles.
No, no.
This is the Israeli army coming up as a unit and deliberately shooting.
Prof
Mamode’s Palestinian colleagues told him that when Israeli forces attacked the
hospital in February, they killed members of staff and deposited them in a mass
grave with dead patients. Many other colleagues were taken away. The surgeon
related one such case:
They
[Israeli soldiers] just took him away and killed him. That’s what’s going on.
As far as I can see, it doesn’t matter who you are in Gaza. If you are a
Palestinian in Gaza, you are a target.
Champion
said in her parliamentary summary:
The
Committee will do all we can to act on Professor Mamode’s extraordinary
testimony and ensure his experiences are heard loud and clear. If leaders are
not yet listening, they should be by now.
This should
have generated massive coverage across national news media, with the Prime
Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Minister David Lammy being bombarded by
questions from journalists on what action the UK government would now take.
Instead, there has been virtual silence.
As far as
we can tell, there was no broadcast coverage on BBC News, Sky News or ITV,
although Channel 4 News did include an item on Prof Mamode’s testimony, at
least on its X feed (we
could not find a broadcast item, however, on the Channel 4 News programme catch-up page). We do not have the
resources to monitor all television and radio programmes, so we cannot rule out
that there was a passing mention on the BBC World Service or elsewhere.
Nor were
there any editorials or significant coverage in major news reports in UK
national newspapers. Prof Mamode’s appearance before the parliamentary
committee was reported in a live Guardian blog
about Gaza on 12 November, but his most compelling and harrowing evidence was
omitted or glossed over. To his credit, Owen Jones mentioned
the surgeon’s account in a Guardian opinion piece.
The
appalling lack of serious coverage is actually highlighted by the fact that
there was one article on the
BBC News website about Prof Mamode’s testimony to the committee (we were
alerted to it by a post on X by one of our followers). The article was titled,
‘Gaza surgeon describes drones targeting
children’. As is often the case, the word ‘Israel’ or ‘Israeli’ – as in
‘Israeli drones’ – was missing from the headline. In other words, the
perpetrator of violence was missing. Moreover, rather than refer to Prof Mamode
as a British surgeon, he was labelled as a ‘Gaza surgeon’, perhaps implying
that he was employed by the ‘Hamas-run health ministry’, the phrase that is
routinely deployed in BBC News reports.
But here
was the most glaring feature of the piece: rather than being placed on the
front page or even somewhere in the section marked, ‘Israel-Gaza war’, a
glaring misnomer for an ongoing genocide, it appeared deep inside the BBC’s
‘Local News’ category on the page for ‘Hampshire & Isle of Wight’. (As far
as we know, it never appeared in a more prominent place on the BBC News
website. But the fact that the bottom of the article contains the line, ‘Get in
touch: Do you have a story BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight should cover?’,
suggests that it was immediately placed in that section). The same treatment
was afforded to an earlier BBC News article in October, shortly after the surgeon had
returned from Gaza, but with the most disturbing details about the deliberate
targeting of children omitted.
Why place
such an important story in the ‘Hampshire & Isle Of Wight’ local news
section of the BBC website? The ostensible reason is that Prof Mamode comes
from Brockenhurst, a New Forest village in Hampshire. But surely the real
reason was to minimise public attention and thus evade pressure from the
powerful Israel lobby. After all, as we have mentioned before, senior BBC News
staff have admitted to
‘waiting in fear for the phone call from the Israelis’.
The Israel
lobby’s weaponising of antisemitism, which was deployed to prevent Jeremy
Corbyn becoming Prime Minister, is being used to suppress or silence criticism
of Israel. This has had a crippling effect on journalism and
free speech.
Regular
readers will recall the dearth of media coverage
given to the harrowing testimony provided by Professor Nick Maynard, a UK
surgeon who works as a consultant gastrointestinal surgeon at Oxford University
Hospital, when he returned from Gaza earlier this year. He had described the
clear, deliberate targeting of hospital and healthcare facilities; but also the
actual execution of Palestinian surgeons and other medical staff.
In April,
Prof Maynard said that Israeli forces are:
systematically targeting healthcare facilities, healthcare personnel and really dismantling the whole healthcare system.
He
described what had happened to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza where he had
previously worked, and where around 400 Palestinians had reportedly been
killed in a brutal two-week attack by Israeli forces:
Every single part of the hospital has been destroyed. The whole infrastructure of the hospital has been destroyed. When I spoke to Marwan [a Palestinian colleague] yesterday, he told me there were 107 patients, 60 medical staff. God only knows what has happened to them. I think we’ve seen some of the pictures. Surgeons I know have been executed in the last 48 hours there. Bodies have been discovered in the last 12-24 hours who had been handcuffed, with their hands behind their back. [Our added emphasis].
He added:
And so, there is no doubt at all, that multiple healthcare workers have been executed there in the last few days.
All of the above, taken together with the media’s recent gaslighting about a supposed ‘pogrom’ against rampaging Israeli football fans chanting genocidal, anti-Arab slogans in Amsterdam last week – disinformation expertly dissected by Richard Sanders for Double Down News – reveals like never before the monstrous, genocide-enabling reality of ‘mainstream’ news media.
Meanwhile,
Israel appears able to continue unimpeded in its brutal drive towards a ‘Greater Israel’, openly espoused by
Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians, which would require the ethnic
cleansing of Palestinians ‘from the Jordan to the sea’.
A war on hospitals is a war on civilians:
Israel’s fatal blow to health in Gaza
+972 Magazine
Two documents outline the scale of
destruction upon Gaza’s health system and medical workers, threatening the very
possibility of sustaining life in the Strip.
By Liat Kozma and Lee Mordechai November 1, 2024
Whenever the Israeli public is called upon to discuss the
fate of the Gaza Strip, the debate tends to focus on the question of who will
control the territory after the war. In recent weeks, this debate, too, seems
to have been sidelined by the escalating war on Lebanon and the Iranian
threat.
Gaza’s fate, however, is not limited to questions of
sovereignty or control, but to the very existence of life. Indeed, two recent
publications that focused on Gaza’s health system sharply illustrate how much
the current catastrophe challenges the very possibility of sustaining life in
the territory.
At the end of September, the Palestinian Ministry of Health
in Gaza issued a document that,
for the first time, comprehensively details the damage to hospitals in the
Strip over a year of war. The novelty of the report is not in the new information
it brings, but rather in the aggregation of over 100 incidents that were
reported in real time in the international and Arab media, as well as in
periodic reports by international humanitarian organizations, into one
document. It thus pieces together the gradual disintegration of Gaza’s health
system, the direct and indirect causes of which are the responsibility of
Israel and its army.
Meanwhile, on Oct. 2, 99 American medical professionals who
volunteered in Gaza during the war for a cumulative 254 weeks issued a public letter to
U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, presenting a stark
picture of the health of the civilian population in the Strip. These professionals
— some with extensive experience providing medical relief in war zones and
after natural disasters — said that the situation in Gaza was much worse than
anything they had encountered before, including in Afghanistan or Ukraine.
A few days after the letter’s publication, we spoke
separately with three of the signatories to get more detailed, first-hand
accounts of the state of Gaza’s health system. Their insights are shared here
alongside those of the documents above.
Doctors and patients begin to flee from the European Hospital
as the Israeli army requested an evacuation to begin a new military operation
east of the city of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 2, 2024.
(Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
Easing suffering before death
The picture that emerges from the two documents and our
conversations with doctors shows the fatal blow dealt to Gaza’s entire health
system and infrastructure.
Only a few echoes of this disintegration reach the Israeli
media; in fact, the absence of these reports from the Israeli public discourse
creates the impression inside Israel that the early warnings of famine and
epidemics in Gaza have not materialized. Moreover, the only number that is
discussed is that of fatalities of Israeli attacks (over 43,061 Palestinians as of writing) —
a number that excludes deaths from disease, starvation, and the poor health of
the population after a year of war.
An examination of the data and testimonies, however, reveals
the scope of the harm to the general Palestinian population, and particularly
the lives of the most vulnerable — infants and toddlers, pregnant women, the
elderly, and the chronically ill.
For example, the medical professionals who signed the letter
to Biden and Harris estimate that it is likely that the death toll in
Gaza since the beginning of the war exceeds 118,908. The letter explicitly
states that, with marginal exceptions, the entire population of Gaza is sick
and/or injured, and almost all children under the age of 5 whom the doctors
encountered suffered from coughing and diarrhea.
In a survey
conducted by Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, an American surgeon who returned from Gaza, in
conjunction with The New York Times, 63 of 65 American health care workers who
volunteered in Gaza described severe malnutrition among patients, Palestinian
health workers, and the general population. In addition, 52 medical
professionals described near-universal mental distress among young children,
noting that they had seen some who were suicidal or hoping to die. One of the
nurses said that the children did not respond to pain, even while they were
being stitched up after being wounded.
Palestinians injured in an Israeli airstirke at the Buraij
refugee camp brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the Gaza
Strip, September 7, 2024. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)
The doctors’ letter states that all medical personnel who
worked in Gaza’s emergency rooms, intensive care units (ICU), or surgical wards
said that they regularly treated small children who were shot in the head or
chest. Dr. Mimi Syed, an emergency physician from Seattle who returned from
Gaza in September, told us that while working in the ICU of Nasser Hospital in
Khan Younis such injuries were very common, and that in some cases, all she and
the staff could do was to ease their patients’ suffering and let them die. In
her words:
The majority of my patients were anywhere from six months old
to early 20s. Most of them were on the lower end of that spectrum. There was a
day where we had nothing but gunshot wounds to the head reported to be
quadcopters by witnesses. And there was nothing to do for most of them. They
were in palliative care because their injuries were so devastating that we had
to just let them die. There must’ve been about eight patients that day in our
Trauma Bay.
In Dr. Sidhwa’s survey, 44
medical professionals reported that they had seen multiple such cases during
their stay in Gaza.
An
intentional pattern
The medical professionals’ letter places the blame for the
systematic and deliberate destruction of Gaza’s health system on Israel.
Indeed, considering all the information regarding the state of the Strip’s
hospitals, one clearly sees an intentional pattern. Hospitals and clinics were
repeatedly hit by aerial bombardment; have suffered from a shortage of
electricity and diesel fuel for generators; have been encircled by tanks; saw
their medical staff and patients expelled as part of the evacuation of an
entire area; and in some cases, were turned into military bases.
As of late October,
20 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza were out of service, while 16 were only
partially functional. Of the 11 field hospitals, half are only partially
functional. The number of hospital beds across the Strip dropped by 75 percent
(from approximately 3,400 at the beginning of the war to around 1,200 in late
September), just as the need for them increased due to the large number of
wounded, the severe shortage of medicines and medical equipment, and the
near-universal spread of infectious diseases.
The sequence of data and dates provided by the Gaza Health
Ministry’s report indicates a series of bombings in the first two weeks of the
war that shut down several hospitals, mainly in the northern Strip; it also
notes the takeover of hospital compounds in November, followed by the de facto
shutdown of all hospitals in northern Gaza and most hospitals in Gaza City.
Doctors and patients begin to flee from the European Hospital
as the Israeli army requested an evacuation to begin a new military operation
east of the city of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 2, 2024.
(Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
Al-Ahli Arab Hospital made headlines in
mid-October 2023 following an explosion that killed hundreds of men, women, and
children who found shelter there. Although the question of responsibility for
the blast remains disputed, the incident and the ensuing debates set a precedent
by normalizing attacks on hospitals in an unprecedented manner.
During November 2023 alone, 12 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were
put out of service temporarily or permanently. Al-Shifa Hospital was raided
twice by the army, in November 2023 and March 2024. While Israeli media chose
to focus on a Hamas tunnel and a number of militants in Al-Shifa compound,
international media reported on the massive destruction to the hospital and the
severe damage to its ability to function, resulting in its complete destruction
in the second raid. The second raid also led to the discovery of mass graves, some of which
had been dug by Gazans during an earlier siege of the hospital, and some of
which were dug while the military took over the compound.
Another wave of attacks on hospitals in the southern Gaza
Strip followed the takeover of the city of Rafah in May 2024. In some cases,
staff and patients were forced to leave hospital compounds, while others were
shelled or bombed. Some hospitals were completely destroyed or converted for
use as military outposts.
In early October 2024, the military ordered three hospitals in northern Gaza to
evacuate once more as part of a broader move to expel the entire civilian
population from the north (the so-called “Generals’ Plan”). This raised the alarm
among at least 38 humanitarian
organizations, which highlighted the harm caused to the medical system,
and the UN Human Rights Office,
which called the situation “desperate.” Israeli commentators have similarly expressed alarm
toward what appears to be ethnic cleansing.
‘Either the baby dies because of no
ventilator, or because of infection’
A series of monthly publications by the Palestinian Health
Ministry, as well as periodic reports by the World Health Organization (WHO)
and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), further
present the long-term consequences of the destruction of medical services in the
Strip.
Palestinians mourn the death of people killed in an Israeli
airstrike outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip,
September 21, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
According to the UN,
1,047 Palestinian medical personnel have been killed and 310 have been arrested
during the war — a reality that places an even greater strain on local medical
teams. The medical professionals’ letter states that their local Palestinian
colleagues were aware that their work as healthcare providers had marked them
as targets, and that many of them were arrested, abused, and taken to detention
facilities in Israel before being returned to Gaza by the military. Many told
their American colleagues that they were simply waiting to die.
Many medical staff have not received their salaries for
months. A great number of them have lost family members, yet continue to come
to work. Many live in tents near the hospitals, or walk daily — sometimes for
hours — from the family tent to the hospitals.
Thousands of the over 100,000 wounded have had their limbs
amputated, at a time in which the Gaza Strip does not have crutches or
wheelchairs, let alone prosthetic limbs, to serve amputees. Meanwhile, children
who are injured require a series of surgeries that they cannot receive in the
current state of Gaza’s health system. All of these findings were backed up by
the medical professionals’ letter and by eyewitness accounts we collected.
The destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has drastic
implications for its ability to maintain a functioning health system. Of the 16
operating hospitals, only four have a full supply of water and sewage services,
while only two have regular electricity.
The consequences are obvious: without electricity, it is
impossible to operate oxygen machines or keep medicines refrigerated. Without
basic sanitation, the danger lies in contracting deadly diseases even inside
the hospital. The medical professionals’ letter states that they have found
cases of jaundice in almost all the hospital rooms where they volunteered, and
among the Gaza medical staff.
Due to severe shortages of soap and detergents throughout the
Strip — in Dr. Sidhwa’s survey, 64 out of 65 respondents said that even the
most basic medical equipment, such as soap and gloves, were usually unavailable
— the surgical environment could not be disinfected, leading to high death
rates from infections.
Members of the Jordanian field hospital install prosthetic
limbs for Palestinian amputees injured during the war, in Khan Younis, in the
southern Gaza Strip, September 17, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
In a conversation with us, pediatrician Dr. Aman Odeh, who
worked in Rafah during March, before the Rafah crossing to Egypt was closed,
testified that soap bottles in the operating room contained only a small amount
of liquid soap that had been diluted with water. In the absence of detergents,
the ventilator tube in the neonatal ward was not disinfected between uses,
leading to the spread of infections and mortality among premature babies. Dr.
Odeh describes the scenes she saw:
There was a newborn in the neonatal ICU who was deteriorating
very quickly no matter what we tried. We tried the strongest antibiotics, but
we were not able to control the infection. That was a day when we were able to
get a blood culture bottle from another place at the hospital. After the baby
passed away, they were able to identify what type of bacteria it was. It was a
multidrug resistant bacteria. But then the next day, other babies were showing
similar patterns. We didn’t have hand sanitizer. The soap bottle was a tiny bit
of soap and old water. We didn’t have gloves. The infections were spreading so
quickly.
A baby who was very, very sick, needed to be on a ventilator.
After the baby passed away, what are we going to do with that ventilator? There
is no way to sanitize the ventilator and get rid of that multidrug-resistant
bacteria. We also didn’t have tubing to change when we used the ventilator for
another baby. So there is a very big chance that you’re going to spread the
infection to other babies: so either the baby dies because there is no
ventilator or the baby dies because of the bacterial infection. Your options
were tragically limited.
Dr. Syed told us that while she was in Gaza, a shipment of
soap arrived, but the price of a small bottle rose to $40. One nurse said
she saw more maggots in wounds in one day in Gaza than she had seen in her
entire career as a wound specialist.
Lethal combinations
The medical professionals’ letter notes that a high
percentage of the incisions in their surgeries were contaminated. Dr. Thalia
Pachiyannakis, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Indiana, told us that
hospitals cut down on their air conditioning to save fuel, resulting in her
performing operations at Nasser Hospital at 40° Celsius (104°Fahrenheit), so
that sweat from her forehead and the foreheads of the other medical personnel
dripped into the wounds of the patients they were operating on.
The letter indicates that the surgeries, including cesarean
sections, were performed without anesthesia or pain relief. Afterward, women
were given only paracetamol to treat their pain.
Dr. Pachiyannakis also spoke about the lack of clean water
for herself as an international volunteer, which caused her and the rest of the
medical staff to become ill. “We were also very sick. You get sick with
diarrhea, then you get better, then you get it again, and you’re vomiting. Once
I was vomiting and had diarrhea at the same time,” she told us.
Palestinians donate blood at the Kuwait Field Hospital in
cooperation with the European Gaza Hospital, west of Rafah, in the southern
Gaza Strip, September 5, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
For young children born malnourished and who are fed formula
made with contaminated water, this condition becomes life-threatening;
according to the medical professionals’ letter, many have died as a result.
Twenty-five medical professionals interviewed for the survey said they saw
babies who had been born healthy return to hospitals and die of dehydration,
malnutrition, or infections.
Dr. Odeh testified that other babies, whose mothers were
unable to breastfeed them due to malnutrition and did not receive adequate
nutrition due to a lack of formula and lack of clean water, received an
infusion at the hospital but were returned home with the same condition that
led to their hospitalization.
The numerous testimonies emphasize the chronic lack of
equipment inside Gaza. The three doctors we spoke with testified that the
Israeli military forbade them from bringing medical equipment they had
purchased themselves into Gaza. In the delivery rooms where Dr. Odeh worked
there was only one ventilator, while in the delivery rooms where Dr.
Pachiyannakis worked, there was no refrigerator, which left the food
contaminated.
There’s no clean water, no pain medicine for women in labor,
the labor beds are broken. There’s only one warmer for the newborns, so when
they’re born they’re all put together in one warmer. And there’s only one
machine for monitoring a baby, so if a baby is having bad heart tones, you
cannot pick it up because there’s only one working machine. So there would be
fetal deaths.
One of the nurses reported that
nearly all of the new children admitted during her time in Gaza died, and that
these deaths could have been prevented with proper nutrition, basic
disinfectants, and adequate supplies.
As of the end of September, only 17 of the 113 dialysis units
that were present in the northern Gaza Strip on the eve of the war remained
operational, compared to 72 out of 178 in the south.
In their letter, the medical professionals worried that
thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition,
disease, and the inability to receive proper treatment, and that tens of
thousands more could die in the coming months due to winter conditions in Gaza.
Most of the dead, they warn, will be small children whose immune systems are
weaker than those of adults.
View of Al-Aqsa Hospital premature babies section after it
was evacuated, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, August 27, 2024. (Abed Rahim
Khatib/Flash90)
Unconvincing legal claims
In a recent policy paper
for the Institute for Palestine Studies, the scholars Nicola Perugini and Neve
Gordon argued that Israel very broadly interprets the reservation in
international law regarding the protection of hospitals. According to
international law, hospitals can be attacked only if combat activity is carried
out from within the hospital itself, and provided that the attack is
proportionate and done out of genuine military necessity, and provided that the
combat force protects the lives of non-combatants.
Testimonies describing Israel’s attacks on hospitals, the
expulsion of all their inhabitants, and the exposure of mass graves clearly
indicate non-compliance with these legal conditions. These, in turn, connect to
the larger picture of the nature of the military operation in the Gaza Strip
and the dire humanitarian situation arising from it, many details of which have
been published on +972.
Perugini and Gordon propose an amendment to international law
that would prohibit attacks on hospitals under any circumstances. The
widespread impact on all hospitals in Gaza, however, cannot wait for such a
change to unfold. And in light of the abundant evidence accumulated over the
past year, Israel’s arguments for meeting the reservations set forth in
international legal conventions are not convincing.
An independent UN commission of inquiry on damage to the Strip’s health infrastructure published in September found that Israel’s actions are part of a deliberate policy that constitutes a crime against humanity, including in the form of extermination and torture. The report’s authors found no support for most of Israel’s claims about Hamas’ military use of hospitals, noting that Israel did not pass on information to the report’s authors, despite requesting such information nine times.
The
destruction of the health system presents a bleak picture of Gaza’s present,
let alone its future. A war that destroys hospitals and does not allow for the
establishment of a suitable alternative is a war against a civilian population,
one that is now plagued by disease and starvation. Any discussion of the war in
the present or the “day after” must therefore take an honest and direct look at
the immediate consequences of Israel’s policies for its victims.
Liat Kozma
is a professor in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, and is
in charge of the Harry Friedenwald Chair in the History of Medicine at the
Hebrew University.
Lee
Mordechai is a senior lecturer in the Department of History at the Hebrew
University.
%20Mondoweiss.webp)
My journey in Gaza as an
emergency doctor: loss, displacement, and hope
Mondoweiss, December 8 2024
By December 8, 2024 5
Injured Palestinians receive
treatment inside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after being targeted by Israeli
occupation forces, April 22, 2024. (Photo: Ali Hamad/APA Images)
Since the
beginning of the war, I have volunteered as an emergency doctor in Gaza to help
my people. Over more than a year, I have witnessed countless horrors and been
repeatedly displaced by Israeli bombardments and invasion. I have lost loved
ones, seen patients die in horrific ways, and feared for my own life — and yet,
even in the darkest moments, I have found glimpses of light.
Awaiting
death in Al-Shifa
From the
very beginning, the situation at al-Shifa hospital
in Gaza City was catastrophic. There weren’t enough beds for the wounded, who
were scattered everywhere. Dead bodies piled up in a “martyrs tent” in the
hospital courtyard.
On November 9,
2023, I found among the martyrs my cousin, his wife, and their two little
daughters. Their bodies were torn into unrecognizable pieces, victims of the
indiscriminate Israeli shelling that ravaged their neighborhood. I didn’t
realize it was them until I saw their ID cards, which had fallen from the
remnants of their tattered clothes.
It was a
scene drenched in heartbreak — a cruel mosaic of innocence and tragedy.
Unable to
distinguish one from the other, we laid them to rest together, wrapped in a
single shroud, as if even death could not separate their bond. The silence that
followed was deafening, but their loss echoed in every corner of my soul.
In November
2023, Israel barred entry of fuel, food, and water into Gaza, as Israeli forces
besieged Al-Shifa. In the hospital, some of us drank saline solution we found
in the storage room to survive.
Hospital
officials pleaded with the Israeli military to allow patients to evacuate. As
soon as this happened, the electricity was cut off, leaving medical staff trapped
for two days, surrounded by the enemy, awaiting death.
We were
gathered in a dark reception in total silence, surrounded only by the sounds of
gunfire, tanks, and shelling. I remember missing my family, who had already
evacuated to southern Gaza at the time. I had no way of contacting them, and I
didn’t know if I would ever see them again.
Suddenly,
one of the doctors started singing Sawfa Nabqa Huna
(We will stay here), a song about life and its beauty. I think he wanted to
distract us, and himself, from the fear. His voice was beautiful as he sang the
words: “We will stay here until the pain disappears, we will live here, and the
melody will become beautiful, my homeland, my homeland.”
We
eventually evacuated the hospital, taken away in ambulances. Before we cleared
the area, we were searched by Israeli soldiers, who detained several senior
doctors.
New places,
same horror
When I
reached the south, I immediately went to find my family. While I felt happiness
and safety finally being reunited with them, I could feel a familiar sadness,
almost like it was lodged in my throat. After the time I spent in al-Shifa,
after witnessing what was happening to my homeland, I was filled with a painful
sense of loss. I spent that day hiding so no one would see me cry. I wondered:
what is left of martyrs after death? Bones and memories, are those all that
remains of a person? Who inherits their fear, anxiety, and sadness?
As soon as I
got to Khan Younis, I began to work at Nasser hospital.
It was a different place, but there I witnessed the same horror.
One
heartbreaking scene remains etched in my mind. A pregnant woman lay on the
floor, her abdomen open, her intestines and liver exposed. A doctor fought to
save her, but both she and her unborn child were lost. The blood, the screams,
and the tragedy froze me in place.
How could a
child who had yet to see life die alongside his mother? How could a mother
leave the world without holding her baby?
That baby
became just another number in an unimaginable toll. All we can hope is that
they rest together in peace.
Eventually,
the Israeli military also reached Nasser hospital. In March, we were evacuated
again and I went to work at al-Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah.
On March 25,
2024, while I was on duty at al-Kuwaiti, the reality of war hit me in the
cruelest way. At around 1:00 am, bodies of martyrs were brought to the
hospital, victims of the relentless bombardment. Among them was Razan Mohammed
Barhoum — a 24-year-old medical graduate, my friend, my classmate, my sister in
spirit. Razan Barhoum (left) and Dr. Shurooq Ahmed (right). (Photo courtesy of
Dr. Shurooq Ahmed).
Razan, who
had memorized the Qur’an and was in the first few months of her pregnancy after
a long struggle to conceive, had been killed in her sleep, alongside others in
her family, when their home was bombed.
I will never
forget the moment I wrapped her body in a shroud with my own hands, tears
streaming down my face. She was not just a friend; she was an example of grace
and resilience, someone who balanced her duties as a wife, student, and
soon-to-be mother with extraordinary strength.
The morgue
was filled with dozens of martyrs, placed in a special tent awaiting burial. As
I said my final goodbye to Razan, I couldn’t reconcile with the fact that this
was the last time I would see her.
Light in
the midst of darkness
I wish this
had been the final displacement.
In April,
after Israeli forces invaded Rafah, I fled to Deir al-Balah, where I joined the
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Since then, I have been a volunteer doctor in its
emergency department.
One
unforgettable moment happened in October 2024 while I was leaving work and
heading back to the tent where I stay with my family near the hospital. I heard
someone shouting, “Doctor Shurooq! The head is coming out!” A photo of baby
Shurooq, born in a tent in Deir al-Balah, and named after Dr. Shurooq Ahmed,
the doctor who delivered her/ (Photo courtesy of Dr. Shurooq Ahmed)
Grabbing my
emergency kit, I rushed to the woman’s tent and delivered a healthy baby girl
with only the tools I had on hand. Thankfully, both mother and baby were safe,
and everything went smoothly. It was a proud and grateful moment, a bright
light in the midst of darkness.
Her mother
named her Shurooq, like me.
This moment
illuminated the darkness within me and filled my heart with a glimmer of hope.
It made me feel that my existence holds meaning, that we are more than just
numbers on a screen. In my hands, I felt the miracle of new life being born — a
profound reminder that even amidst the shadows of despair, there is still
light, purpose, and the beauty of renewal.
Video: Kamal Adwan ICU in N Gaza ablaze after
‘night of horror’ under Israeli attack
18/12/2024
Doctors,
babies, oxygen stores already attacked by Israel, now most desperately sick and
wounded are targeted
The
intensive care unit (ICU) at Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza is in flames
and completely out of service after what hospital staff describe as a ‘night of
horror’ under Israeli bombs and shells. The hospital has been a frequent target
for occupation forces, killing babies
and medical staff – including the hospital’s ICU
head – and destroying vital medicine and oxygen stores. More than
sixty patients are said to be still trapped inside the unit; the precise number
of casualties is unknown, but dozens are said to have been killed and more than
fifty wounded.
Dr Hussam
Abu Safiyeh, Kamal Adwan director, on the attack.
While UK
media have remained silent on the attack, Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera has
covered it:
Staff
described last night as a ‘night of horror’:
Medical
staff in the UK and Ireland have called on their governments to take urgent
action against Israel’s war crimes against their colleagues and their patients
in Palestine. Neither UK PM Keir Starmer nor Foreign Secretary David Lammy have
mentioned, let alone condemned, Israel’s war on Gaza’s hospitals, doctors and
sick.
The Killing, Detention and Torture of Healthcare Workers in Gaza
Healthcare Workers
Watch
‘Unprecedented Crime’ – Hamas
Condemns Assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital
Palestine
Chronicle 23.12.24
The hospital
has been under intense Israeli military bombardment for days, with its
intensive care unit coming under direct fire.
The
Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas has condemned the Israeli military’s
ongoing assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, describing it as an “unprecedented crime against humanity.”
“The occupation army
continues its relentless bombing and systematic destruction of northern Gaza,
focusing particularly on the Jabalia refugee camp and Beit Lahia,”
Hamas said
on Sunday, according to the Anadolu news agency.
“The strikes are targeting
residential areas, shelters, schools and especially Kamal Adwan Hospital,” it
added.
The hospital
has been under intense Israeli military bombardment for days, with its
intensive care unit coming under direct fire. On Sunday, the hospital, which is
caring for critically ill patients, was ordered to evacuate.
Hamas called
this “a crime of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement under the shadow of
international silence and inaction.”
The movement
appealed to Arab and Islamic nations as well as governments and global entities
to take immediate action using all means to support the Palestinian people,
protect holy sites and liberate their land from occupation, Anadolu reported.
‘Without
Warning’
On Monday,
the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, shared footage
documenting the Israel army placing explosive-laden robots at the gates of the
facility.
This follows
an earlier urgent video message in which Dr. Abu Safiya said that the hospital
had come under heavy shelling and direct sniper fire.
He said that
“without warning” the hospital’s intensive care unit, the neonatal unit, the
maternity ward, and all other hospital departments were being “bombarded by the
occupation forces.”
The army was
using “all kinds of weapons, snipers, tanks and quadcopter drones,” he stated.
‘Critically Ill Patients’
“This is a disaster, we are
currently the only hospital still providing humanitarian services in northern
Gaza,” he warned, adding that evacuating meant “displacing 66 patients,
removing all hospital equipment, and evacuating all medical staff.”
Video
footage captured
critically ill patients in the ICU and neonatal ward, as well as patients seen sheltering in
the hospital corridors amid heavy bombardment.
“We hold the world
responsible for what is happening, we hold the world accountable for ignoring
our pleas as we have been calling on them for more than 70 days to protect this
healthcare system but unfortunately, no one is responding,” he stated.
‘A Big
Crime’
In an interview with
the Al-Jazeera Arabic channel, Dr. Muneer Alboursh, Director-General of Gaza’s
Ministry of Health, said the hospital “now
has no lighting except from solar power in the morning.”
He described
Israel’s demand for the hospital to be evacuated as “a big crime.”
Alboursh shared a photo on
his X page of a person lying amidst rubble and destruction of buildings. The
caption stated that a “citizen was targeted and burned in front of the gate of
Kamal Adwan Hospital,” according to a Google translation.
Ongoing
Genocide
Meanwhile,
the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip continued with the death toll among
starved and besieged Palestinian civilians rising daily.
Currently on
trial before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide against
Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7,
2023.
According to
Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 45,259 Palestinians have, to date, been killed, and 107,627
wounded. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead
under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says
that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood
Operation on October 7. However, Israeli media published reports suggesting
that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Millions Displaced
Palestinian
and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and
wounded are women and children.
The Israeli
war has resulted in an acute famine resulting in the death of many
Palestinians, mostly children.
Gaza appeals for help as Israeli army attacks
key hospitals
The Israeli military is targeting Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, Indonesian Hospital and al-Awda Hospital.
Al Jazeera English
The Israeli
military is targeting three major hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip as
doctors and authorities in the enclave request immediate intervention by the
international community.
On Tuesday,
weeklong Israeli attacks intensified on the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital and
Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and the al-Awda Hospital located east of
the Jabalia refugee camp.
Two explosive-laden unmanned robotic vehicles planted earlier by
the Israeli military blew up in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan in the early hours
of Tuesday, wounding approximately 20 patients and medical staff, hospital
director Hussam Abu Safia told Al Jazeera.
The death toll from the bombing carried out by Israeli drones on the tents of the displaced in the Al-Mawasi area (west of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip) has risen to seven. pic.twitter.com/GsgTfibyxW
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) December 22, 2024
This was the first time Israeli forces used the
explosives outside Kamal Adwan, but there have been similar reports of them
being used to detonate buildings in northern Gaza.
Reporting
from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said,
“An eyewitness told us that much of the area around
the hospital has been cleared from buildings, the infrastructure destroyed and
severely damaged, impeding movement in and out of the hospital.”
The hospital
has been repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military, rendering various
departments, including the intensive care unit, inoperable.
Repeated Attacks (Al Jazeera)
Al-Awda, a
charitable facility providing free healthcare in the northern part of the
enclave, was hit on its third floor by the Israeli military on Tuesday. Parts
of the building caught fire, which also spread to nearby residential buildings.
The
Indonesian Hospital, a larger health facility that also been experiencing
increased attacks, was threatened by the Israeli forces to evacuate the entire
facility.
Munir
Al-Bursh, director of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, said the Israeli army had
ordered hospital officials to evacuate it on Monday, before storming it in the
early hours of Tuesday and forcing those inside to leave.
Al Jazeera’s
Mahmoud said the two hospitals have been providing medical supplies to besieged
Kamal Adwan and also transferring patients out of there when possible.
“The Indonesian Hospital has been crippled by the
attacks in the past few months. Much of the facility has been damaged, forcing
many to evacuate it. As of midnight, the Israeli military issued a warning to
everyone inside the hospital, including the patients, to leave the building and
be in the streets in the cold weather amid the intimidation by the tanks and
quadcopters,” he said.
Hospital
directors, health authorities and rights organisations inside and outside Gaza
have been condemning the attacks and calling for international help, but the
situation in the north has only deteriorated.
Gaza’s
Health Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the Israeli military is
trying to put all three hospitals in the north out of service, and appealed for
intervention.
The
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said more than 20 attacks on Kamal
Adwan Hospital in recent days using drones, shelling and gunfire show that
“genocide persists” in Gaza.
Aid
delivery ‘almost impossible’
The Israeli
military continues to launch numerous deadly air raids on Gaza each day, with
medical sources confirming on Tuesday there were at least 32 deaths in the past
24 hours.
Some of the
latest Israeli attacks included the bombing of a house in central Gaza that
killed four, including a child and two women.
The Israeli
military has kept blocking humanitarian aid bound for the enclave, with the
chaos created by its ground offensive presenting myriad challenges for safely
getting the meagre trucks coming in to designated locations, aid groups say.
On Monday
night, an Israeli drone attack hit an area approximately 1km away from Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, targeting a humanitarian aid convoy.
Al Jazeera’s
Mahmoud, reporting from the hospital, said the Israeli military first allowed
gangs to attack the convoy with the aim of looting it, to later launch a drone
attack against security guards trying to protect the cargo.
“These seem to be deliberate attacks to cause more
mayhem. Israel has killed 30 of these security guards so far.”
Tom
Fletcher, the head of the United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA), said in a year
when more humanitarians have been killed than any on record, Gaza is currently
dealing with its most dangerous situation yet.
“As a result, despite the massive humanitarian needs,
it has become almost impossible to deliver even a fraction of the aid that is
so urgently required. The Israeli authorities continue to deny us meaningful
access – over 100 requests to access North Gaza were denied since 6 October. We
are also now seeing the breakdown of law and order and the systematic armed
looting of our supplies by local gangs.”
See also
Video: just a small taste of Israel’s
atrocities against children this week. Don’t look away 15/12/2024
‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp
Palestinian surgeon was assaulted before dying in Israeli detention, reports say - British Medical Journal
For Israeli police, humiliating Palestinian women is a tool of collective repression
‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp
For Israeli police, humiliating Palestinian women is a tool of collective repression
‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
