GAZA, (PIC)
The Israeli siege imposed by the occupation army on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has no meaning, nor does the arrest of its medical staff, except as a means to carry out the crime of genocide that Israel has been committing with premeditation for 24 days.
After a five-day siege, the occupation army arrested 40 doctors and nurses from the medical staff working at the only main hospital in northern Gaza, leaving only its general director, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, and one pediatrician. This prompted the Ministry of Health to appeal to international organizations to urgently send surgical medical teams to the hospital and to call upon anyone with surgical skills to join them, to save what can be saved of the injured and sick.
On October 26, the occupation army arrested a number of the injured, patients, and displaced individuals in the hospital, while media coverage of these developments is almost non-existent, given the occupation’s complete control over the area, hindering knowledge of all that occurred in the hospital. On that day, female medical staff were detained in an isolated room without food or water, while men were taken away stripped of their clothes and with their hands bound to an unknown destination.
The General Director of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Munir Al-Bursh, confirms that 30 medical personnel are still under occupation, as the occupation released 10 of them hours after their arrest. Activists reported that the occupation army released some of the detained doctors and nurses, who reached Sheikh Radwan Clinic in western Gaza City.
The occupation army did not abandon its plan to arrest the general director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who appeared in scenes during the completion of the hospital’s siege and the detention of its staff on October 26, after artillery shelling, raising his hands alongside a nurse who held a white cloth with one of her trembling hands. The occupation army released Dr. Hossam not out of goodwill, but to break his heart over his son Ibrahim (20 years old), who was killed by a bullet to the head fired by an Israeli drone on the same day.
In documentary scenes of the genocide and forced displacement through artillery bombardments of homes and the demolition of residential blocks, Dr. Hossam has not removed his white coat since the beginning of the genocide war more than a year ago, choosing to bury his son next to the hospital wall, which he has not left for a single day.
They burned our hearts
Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya could not hold back his tears as he remembered his martyr son, expressing the deep pain he feels from his loss amid the painful events occurring in northern Gaza. He said that the Israeli occupation army killed his son because he conveys a humanitarian message.
In a statement to Al Jazeera Mubasher, he adds, “We have lost everything in this hospital, even our children. They burned our hearts over the hospital and killed our children before our eyes because we carry a humanitarian message, and we buried them with our own hands.”
Abu Safiya emphasizes that the hospital is currently operating with only two doctors, stating, “My colleague and I are trying to provide services, but we lack the necessary medical staff, especially in the surgical field, which makes us unable to provide the required care.”
He pointed out that “the number of injured is continuously increasing, as victims are losing their lives due to the lack of necessary medical resources.” He called on the international community to open humanitarian corridors to allow medical teams and essential equipment to enter to save the injured. He also urged for supplying them with ambulances to transport patients between hospitals, saying, “The healthcare system is completely collapsed, and we cannot describe the conditions we witnessed after the Israeli army stormed the hospital.”
Abu Safiya emphasized the urgent need for international intervention for the sake of the hospital, noting that all medical supplies have become nonexistent. He also called for the release of the detained medical personnel and for international protection, pointing out that the hospital has suffered significant damage.
On Friday, October 25, Israeli artillery bombed the oxygen station of Kamal Adwan Hospital, resulting in the deaths of two children in the intensive care unit. Less than an hour later, occupation forces stormed the hospital grounds, demanding all those present—wounded, companions, and displaced persons—exit to the hospital yard, where they assaulted several individuals before communication with the hospital was completely cut off, according to the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights.
The center explained that the occupation forces searched the hospital and fired inside various departments, increasing panic and anxiety, noting injuries to three nurses and a sanitation worker, as well as the destruction of three ambulances and a transport vehicle, and damage to the solar-powered electricity generation system.
During the assault on the hospital, the occupation army detained the director of the Jabalia Civil Defense Center, Saeed Shbeir, and firefighter Ramadan Al-Aqra, just a day before detaining the medical staff and the injured patients inside, as well as burning ambulances and several homes in the hospital’s vicinity.
Three hospitals out of service
Before the storming of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Mohammed Obaid, an orthopedic surgeon, reported that the occupation forces had not ceased targeting the vicinity of the hospital since the first day of the large-scale military attack on northern Gaza on October 5.
In his testimony to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Dr. Obaid noted that Kamal Adwan Hospital received most of the injuries after the Indonesian hospital was completely out of service, and the Al-Awda Hospital was under siege.
He added in a statement on October 26 that the hospital was overwhelmed with injuries, with the remaining medical staff unable to provide treatment due to a lack of medication and surgical tools, and that ambulances and civil defense teams faced difficulties evacuating the injured and could not reach wide areas of northern Gaza to save those trapped under the rubble of their homes.
Dr. Obaid said that dozens of bodies had piled up in the hospital corridors, with no ability to wrap them due to the shortage of shrouds.
A tragic situation with no horizon
UNICEF confirms that children in Gaza are at risk of death due to delays in medical evacuations. As of October 21, the Israeli army had refused to coordinate 66 UN missions for evacuating the wounded and allowing humanitarian aid into northern Gaza, permitting only four humanitarian missions that provided hospitals with limited amounts of fuel and evacuated a number of injured to hospitals in Gaza City.
Stephanie Ehler, deputy head of the Red Cross mission in Gaza, warns of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, describing it as “extremely tragic.” She emphasized the need for a safe passage for those wishing to leave their locations.
In a statement a couple of days ago, she said, “The ongoing evacuation orders and continuous restrictions on the entry of essential supplies leave the remaining civilian population in northern Gaza under horrific conditions.”
For his part, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, describes the situation in northern Gaza as “catastrophic,” confirming a “serious shortage of medical supplies, coupled with very limited access to these supplies, depriving people of life-saving treatments.”
Tedros said that the attack by the occupation army on the last functioning hospital (Kamal Adwan) in northern Gaza comes amid ongoing attacks on the entire healthcare system for over a year. He stressed that “hospitals must be protected from conflict at all times,” reiterating that any attack on healthcare facilities constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law.
Absence of international law
Human rights organizations affirmed that the ongoing and repeated targeting of the three main hospitals in northern Gaza by occupation forces, deliberately putting them out of service and leaving trapped civilians in those areas without life-saving health services, “is part of the genocide being perpetrated against the residents of Gaza since the onset of its large-scale military attack on October 7, 2023.”
The organizations, in a joint press statement (the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Al-Mezan Center, and Al-Haq Foundation), called on third-party states to uphold their legal responsibilities, put an end to the impunity of the occupying state, and hold its officials accountable for committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, taking immediate decisions to halt the supply of arms and ammunition to Israel.
They emphasized that forced displacement of populations amounts to a war crime, as the occupying authorities use it as a means of extermination, noting that international humanitarian law prohibits the transfer or forced relocation of populations under occupation.
The statement reads: “In exceptional cases related to urgent military necessity where temporary evacuation is permitted as a last resort, or to protect civilians, occupying forces must ensure the safe transfer of civilians and their access to shelter, food, water, and healthcare, while the occupying forces do the opposite of, using the displacement of populations in Gaza as a means of genocide in a complete criminal act.”
As the occupation continues its genocidal war on Gaza, it imposes a comprehensive siege on the residents of northern Gaza, preventing the minimum humanitarian and medical aid from reaching them, and intensifying the destruction of the healthcare system, leaving around 200,000 citizens under deadly conditions and a grim fate: death or forced displacement under fire.
