Kamal Adwan Hospital staffs burned in fire

Since the current vocabulary is insufficient and ineffective in describing the breadth, depth, and volume of the Zionist regime's crimes against Gaza over the past year, it appears necessary to coin new terms to characterize these crimes.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Talalang Mofokeng, recently coined the term “medicide” to describe the ongoing Israeli crimes against hospitals and health facilities in Gaza. He said: “There has never been a military conflict in which healthcare workers have been attacked like the healthcare workers in Gaza.”

He continued: “The amazing devastation of health systems and assaults on healthcare professionals are now being referred to as "medicide." The frequent attacks on Palestinian hospitals and medical personnel are creating a precedent that deprives healthcare workers of protection and allows them to violate international law with impunity. As we watch, new levels of crime are emerging that we will never be able to stop. Such crimes have probably never been witnessed before. They took an oath and are the ones who refused to leave the hospital, even though they knew what would happen to their patients.”

Over the past year, the Zionist regime has carried out a campaign to destroy hospitals and medical and health centers in Gaza in various forms. The first step in this campaign was to prevent the entry of medicine and the sending of patients outside Gaza, but the subsequent steps were even more criminal. Bombing hospitals, massacring patients, arresting and torturing medical staff, destroying hospitals, etc. were among the crimes that the Zionist regime used against hospitals and medical and health centers in Gaza over the past year. The severity and frequency of these crimes were to the point that a large number of hospitals in Gaza turned into mass graves.

Statistics show that only roughly 17 of the 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip are only partially operational; this is due to the Zionist regime's ongoing strategy of demolishing Gaza's hospitals, medical facilities, and health centers.

The Zionist regime has consistently employed the fading and unrecorded scenario of military use of Gaza's hospitals and medical and health facilities to further this strategy over the past year, despite the fact that the regime has not yet released any supporting documentation for any of its assertions in this area. Human Rights Watch stated: Israel has not provided any evidence that could deprive hospitals of special protection.

One of the targets of this criminal campaign has been Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. In recent weeks, Zionist forces have destroyed the hospital's buildings and abducted over 70 medical and healthcare workers after besieging the last operational hospital in the region. They also targeted the hospital's generators and oxygen station, which resulted in the deaths of at least two children who were admitted to the intensive care unit. Additionally, the Zionist forces severely damaged the intensive care unit and medicine warehouse.

Regarding the crime committed by the Zionist regime against Kamal Adwan Hospital, the director of the Ministry of Health's field hospitals in Gaza said: "The smell of death has spread around the hospital."

The Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, was the target of the most recent crime committed by the Zionist regime. As a result of the Zionist forces' Friday night raid, the hospital was set on fire and several of its employees were martyred.

What transpired on Friday night is a new chapter in the long-running crime committed by the Zionist regime against Kamal Adwan.

What happened in Kamal Adwan?

Kamal Adwan Hospital, the only functioning hospital in northern Gaza, has struggled to stay afloat in recent months.

The hospital lacked much medical equipment, no anesthetics or painkillers, so when people were injured and suffering from airstrikes and other bombardments, Kamal Adwan was the only place they could go to seek refuge. Some of the staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital and several witnesses announced on Friday, January 27, that Israeli soldiers had set fire to the hospital.

In addition to videos shared by nurses showing the hospital's condition, the head of Kamal Adwan Hospital also posted a message online, writing: "The Israeli army has set fire to all the hospital's operational areas; a number of staff have been arrested and many have been injured."

Meanwhile, an audio message from Kamal Adwan Hospital staff said: "The surgical, laboratory, maintenance and emergency departments are completely burned and the fire is spreading to the buildings; ambulances have been dispatched to transport the survivors to an Indonesian hospital."

Order of evacuation

The Israeli army issued an order to evacuate the hospital on Friday; Hossam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, posted a message on the X social network on Friday morning that the Zionist soldiers had surrounded the Kamal Adwan Hospital and ordered its evacuation.

The Palestinian Deputy Minister of Health in Gaza confirmed that the Kamal Adwan Hospital had been completely evacuated by the Zionist soldiers and announced: 25 wounded and patients in critical conditions were forcibly removed from the hospital earlier today and transferred to an Indonesian hospital.

He said: Israeli soldiers set fire to the surgical ward, laboratory and warehouse in the hospital; according to a separate statement issued by the Gaza Health Ministry, the fire then spread to all buildings in the medical complex.

The statement claimed that because the operating and surgical wards, laboratory, maintenance, ambulance units, and warehouses have all been totally destroyed by fire, Kamal Adwan is under an oppressive siege; The facility's generators have all been destroyed, and the occupying army is transferring patients and injured people at gunpoint to an Indonesian hospital that is devoid of electricity, generators, medical supplies, water, and medication.

Two nurses at Kamal Adwan Hospital said that after the Israeli army told patients and staff to leave the building, the Israeli soldiers rounded them up and then separated them by gender; this process took more than 2 hours.

A nurse working in the Kamal Adwan Hospital laboratory said on Friday: “The Israeli army told men and women to take off their clothes and headscarves; those who refused to take off their clothes were beaten; I did not have a phone, but those who refused to hand over their phones were beaten.”

Another nurse at Kamal Adwan Hospital said: “Israeli soldiers are interrogating hospital staff one by one, inside a truck outside the hospital compound.”

"My husband and all the other young men who were in the hospital were taken into custody; they had beaten the women and told them to take off their clothes, which we refused to do. "Death is all around us," she remarked.

Zionists' ongoing crime in Kamal Adwan

Monir Al-Barsh, Director of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, announced on Friday evening that Kamal Adwan Hospital was set on fire after it was forcibly evacuated by the Zionist regime.

According to Al Jazeera, Zionist soldiers caused a number of martyrs by setting fire to Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza; according to sources, some of the hospital's medical staff were burned alive in the fire; at the same time, the fate of many patients remains unknown after the forced evacuation of Kamal Adwan.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that Zionist soldiers took dozens of Kamal Adwan medical staff, including Abu Safiya, for interrogation. According to Al Jazeera, at least five employees of Kamal Adwan Hospital were burned alive in the fire after Zionist soldiers set fire to various parts of the hospital.

Meanwhile, witnesses inside the Kamal Adwan hospital reported this week that the Israeli regime used “robots” to attack the medical center, which resulted in massive explosions that killed patients and medical staff.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that Zionist soldiers took dozens of Kamal Adwan medical staff, including Abu Safiya, for interrogation. According to Al Jazeera, at least five employees of Kamal Adwan Hospital were burned alive in the fire after Zionist soldiers set fire to various parts of the hospital.

Meanwhile, witnesses inside the Kamal Adwan hospital reported this week that the Israeli regime used “robots” to attack the medical center, which resulted in massive explosions that killed patients and medical staff.

Although little information was released about the situation at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza on Friday, witnesses said that extensive inspections were carried out by the Israeli military around the hospital. Witnesses also said that Zionist soldiers carried out summary executions around the hospital. 

Response of the World Health Organization

In a statement released on Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed concern about the situation at Kamal Adwan Hospital and warned that the hospital is now inoperable due to an Israeli attack on the last significant medical facility in northern Gaza.

At least 60 hospital employees and 25 patients, including those in need of ventilators, are in critical condition, the statement added.

According to the statement by the UN agency, the systematic destruction of the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip is condemning tens of thousands of Palestinians to death.