After a four-day blockade at Al Awda Hospital, a serious medical heart in northern Gaza, the Israeli navy ordered sufferers and workers to evacuate on Wednesday after which raided the complicated, in line with Gazan well being officers.
Whereas many of the roughly 150 individuals who had been at Al Awda Hospital had been in a position to evacuate, about 30, together with sufferers in crucial situation, their companions and medical employees, stayed behind, Dr. Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the Gaza Well being Ministry, mentioned in an announcement on Thursday.
The Israeli navy declined to touch upon its operations round Al Awda, which is within the Tal Al-Zaatar space in northern Gaza. Israel withdrew from a lot of the north earlier within the yr, however has lately returned to some areas to combat what it says are makes an attempt by Hamas to reconstitute its forces there.
The hospital’s appearing director, Dr. Mohammad Salha, mentioned that he had advised Israeli forces he wouldn’t transfer some crucial sufferers with out ambulances. He mentioned he had remained there, together with a number of medical employees, to make sure the protected evacuation of the sufferers.
“They’re crushing all the things, destroyed the doorways,” mentioned Dr. Salha. “They’re checking each single centimeter of the hospital,” he added in a voice message from contained in the hospital early Thursday morning.
Naji Ziadeh, a member of the hospital’s administrative workers, mentioned these on the hospital had been “besieged for 4 entire days, throughout which we lived indescribable horror.” He mentioned in a telephone interview {that a} tank had superior to the hospital’s entrance on Wednesday and that the troops used loudspeakers to order everybody to evacuate.
Israeli forces then started escorting sufferers and workers members out of the hospital and looking them one after the other, Mr. Ziadeh mentioned. They had been then taken to a warehouse and requested to maneuver north to Gaza Metropolis.
Mr. Ziadeh mentioned that he “shed tears of anguish” whereas evacuating the hospital, the place he, like Dr. Salha, had been working and dwelling because the conflict started. “It’s our house,” he mentioned.
Those that had been trapped contained in the hospital in the course of the blockade, with little gasoline and no clear water, included two new child infants and their moms, who had delivered them by C-section, Dr. Salha mentioned. He added that workers members he was in contact with had evacuated to Gaza Metropolis and had been trying to find shelter.
The dire circumstances on the hospital are a part of a sample that has performed out repeatedly throughout Gaza over greater than seven months of conflict. Israel has raided a number of hospitals after accusing Hamas, the armed group that led an assault into southern Israel on Oct. 7, of utilizing them for navy functions, claims that Hamas and hospital directors have denied.
Like many medical amenities, Al Awda has come below repeated assault. In November, Médecins sans Frontières mentioned three docs, together with two of its workers members, had been killed in a strike on the hospital.
The hospital additionally confronted a virtually two-week siege in December, throughout which a number of medical employees within the constructing, together with an M.S.F. surgeon, had been shot from the skin, the help group mentioned. The Israeli navy then took management of the hospital and stripped and detained individuals for interrogation, M.S.F. mentioned.
The hospital’s director, Dr. Ahmed Muhanna, was a kind of taken into Israeli custody and his whereabouts stay unknown, in line with ActionAid, one other nongovernmental group that helps the hospital.
Ameera Harouda contributed reporting from Doha, Qatar.
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