The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, north Gaza, forcing it out of service and risking the lives of patients, injured, and medical personnel. PCHR asserts that IOF’s repeated and ongoing attacks on the three main hospitals in north Gaza and forcing them to cease lifesaving health services for the civilians besieged in those areas fall under the genocide committed against the people of Gaza that has been ongoing since the beginning of the war on 7 October 2024.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH), on Friday, IOF bombed the oxygen plant in Kamal Adwan Hospital, killing many patients, including infants in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Meanwhile at dawn, IOF raided the hospital building, injuring three nurses and a cleaner, forced men to strip and arrested some of them. They then held the medical personnel in one room, including the hospital director, Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, and subjected them to interrogation. Approximately 600 people were inside the hospital, including patients, companions, and medical personnel. IOF caused extensive destruction to the hospital after searching all departments, deliberately destroying three ambulances and one transport vehicle, and demolishing solar panels, forcing the hospital out of service. Over the past two weeks, the hospital has been under siege, with medical and food supplies blocked from reaching patients to save their lives.
Before the raid, Dr. Mohammed Obaid, an orthopedic surgeon, informed PCHR’s researcher1 that since day 1 of the military campaign on north Gaza, IOF have been relentlessly bombing the proximity of the hospital, escalating their attacks in recent days by bombing the hospital building with quadcopters. The hospital had been receiving most casualties after the Indonesian Hospital became non-operational, and Al-Awda Hospital was besieged. Dr. Obaid stated that the hospital is overcrowded with injured people, and the remaining medical personnel are unable to provide adequate treatment amid no medicines and surgical tools. Moreover, ambulances and civil defense vehicles face extreme difficulty in evacuating the wounded to the hospital, with access to many areas restricted, leaving the injured trapped under rubble. People have been limitedly transporting casualties to the hospital, but most succumb to their injuries before receiving care. Dr. Obaid emphasized that dozens of bodies are piling up in the hospital hallways with no sheets to shroud them due to depleted supplies, while 150 patients and injured face an uncertain fate given the current situation.
In disregard for all legal norms, IOF have deliberately targeted ambulance and civil defense teams as five members of civil defense personnel have been reportedly detained, three others targeted, and the last remaining firefighting vehicle in the area was destroyed. Consequently, the Civil Defense declared a complete halt to its operations in north Gaza on Thursday, 24 October 2024. Al Awda Health and Community Association previously reported that an ambulance from Al-Awda Hospital, east of Jabalia Refugee Camp, was directly targeted while performing its field duties, killing a woman who had just delivered her baby in the hospital and her companion, following the hospital’s-imposed siege, where around 150 individuals remain trapped.
UNICEF has declared that children in Gaza are at risk of death due to delays in medical evacuation.2 Up to 21 October, only 4 out of 66 UN humanitarian missions have been allowed by the IOF to evacuate patients and bring in humanitarian aid to north Gaza, including limited fuel and evacuation of some injured to Gaza City hospitals.3
In light of the above, PCHR emphasizes that residents in north Gaza, especially the sick and injured, face a grim fate: death or forced displacement. IOF’s intentional attacks on hospitals, civil defense, and ambulance teams and impeding their humanitarian duties and operations to rescue hundreds trapped in targeted homes, effectively sentencing them to death after sustaining serious injuries from the relentless bombardment. PCHR emphasizes that IOF have committed a full-fledged crime of genocide by imposing deadly conditions that deprive North Gaza residents of even the most basic health and human rights after the total collapse of the healthcare system
