The Israeli military raided Al Awda Hospital, the main medical center in northern Gaza, after four days of blockade, ordering the evacuation of patients and staff on Wednesday, according to Gaza health officials.
Dr. Medhat Abbas, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said in a statement on Thursday that most of the approximately 150 patients at Al Awda Hospital had been evacuated, but about 30 people remained, including patients in critical conditions, their caregivers and medical staff.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the operation around Al Awda, in the Tal Zatar district in northern Gaza. Israel withdrew its troops from much of the north earlier this year but has recently returned to some areas to combat what it calls attempts by Hamas to regroup its forces there.
Dr. Mohammad Sarha, the hospital’s acting director, said he had told Israeli troops he would not transfer some critically ill patients without ambulances. He said he and several medical staff had remained there to ensure the safe evacuation of patients.
“They are destroying everything, destroying the doors,” Dr Saha said. “They are checking every centimetre of the hospital,” he added in a voice message from inside the hospital in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Naji Ziadeh, a hospital administrator, said people inside the hospital “were under siege for four days, and we lived in unspeakable fear.” In a telephone interview, he said a tank had arrived at the hospital entrance on Wednesday and troops used a loudspeaker to order everyone to evacuate.
Ziad said Israeli troops then began escorting patients and staff out of the hospital and searching them one by one. They were then taken to a warehouse and asked to move north to Gaza City.
Mr Ziad said he “shed tears of pain” as he was evacuated from the hospital, where he, like Dr Saha, has lived and worked since the start of the war. “This is our home,” he said.
those who once trapped in hospital Dr. Salha said fuel shortages and lack of clean water during the blockade have left many people dead, including two newborn babies and their mother, who were born by caesarean section. He added that staff he was in contact with had evacuated to Gaza City and were seeking shelter.
Poor conditions at the hospital are part of a recurring pattern during Gaza’s more than seven-month war. Raid multiple hospitals The militant group Hamas, which launched the first attack on southern Israel on October 7, was accused of using it for military purposes, but Hamas and hospital administrators denied this.
Like many medical facilities, Al Awda Repeated attacksIn November, Doctors Without Borders said three doctors, including two staff members, were killed in a strike at the hospital.
The hospital also came under a nearly two-week siege in December, during which several medical staff inside the building were shot from outside, including an MSF surgeon, according to MSF. The Israeli military then took control of the hospital and stripped people of their clothes, detaining them for questioning, MSF said.
The director of the hospital, Dr. Ahmed Muhana, is one of those detained by Israel and his whereabouts remain unknown, according to ActionAid, another NGO that supports the hospital.
Amira Haruda Reporting from Doha, Qatar, also contributed.
