On Saturday, Israeli forces withdrew from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
Israeli forces pulled out of the area after a siege on the hospital that lasted over 20 days. Israeli tanks fired on the hospital before troops stormed the facility and detained dozens of staff members and some patients.
“We were surrounded from all sides. There was shooting from all directions with bombs and mortars,” said Mayssoun Alian, a nurse at Kamal Adwan.
Medics said at least two children died in the Intensive Care Unit on Friday after Israeli fire hit generators and oxygen tanks at the hospital. The Israeli attack also killed the son of Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, the hospital’s director.
“Everything we built, they have burned. They have burned our hearts. They killed my son,” Abu Safia said.
According to Reuters, Israeli forces arrested at least 44 of the 70-member hospital staff and later released 14, including Abu Safia. Alian said the men who were detained were humiliated because they were forced to take off their clothes.
Abu Safia said there are now only two doctors at the hospital for 145 patients and that no surgery services are available. “I don’t have a medical staff capable of providing them this surgical service,” he said.
Abu Safia is calling for humanitarian corridors to allow more healthcare workers into Beit Lahia and for patients who need surgery to be evacuated. “We have called on the world, pleading to open a humanitarian corridor to bring in medical teams that can save those who can be saved,” he said.
Israel has been attempting to carry out an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza since the beginning of the month that’s focused on Jabalia and the areas around it, including Beit Lahia, which has involved a complete siege on the north.
The head of Gaza’s Civil Defense told NBC News on Sunday that there have been approximately 1,000 people have been killed and 670 others missing since operations began in northern Gaza. Israeli strikes in Beit Lahia on Saturday killed at least 35.
Middle East Eye reported that northern Gaza’s health system is now completely out of service following the Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan.
Israel usually justifies its attacks on Gaza hospitals by claiming Hamas members are present but never offers evidence for its claims. Ninety-nine American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza recently said in an open letter to President Biden that none of them ever saw militant activity where they worked.
“The 99 signatories to this letter spent a combined 254 weeks inside Gaza’s largest hospitals and clinics. We wish to be absolutely clear: not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities,” the healthcare workers said.
