Israeli forces have stormed the last operational hospital in the besieged north Gaza after bombing it and killing children inside, according to doctors and media reports.
Medical sources announced that at least 63 Palestinians were killed in the early morning Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. “A large number of the martyrs are women and children,” they said.
The attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital, located in Beit Lahia northwest of Jabalia, was launched around 2 a.m. local time Friday, shortly after a WHO delegation left the hospital.
It began with airstrikes targeting the hospital and its courtyards, including the medical oxygen generator, said Dr. Munir al-Bursh, the director general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.
The bombing led to the death of children inside the hospital and wounded medical staff.
Israeli troops then raided the hospital around two hours later, calling on all patients, including people in intensive care, to gather in the courtyard.
They detained the young men sheltering in the hospital and interrogated them. According to Al Jazeera, the troops abducted famed teenage Palestinian activist and journalist Aboud Battah from the hospital.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip that have been under a suffocating Israeli siege for three weeks. They have received little to no aid, medicine, food and fuel since the blockade on the north began.
The other two, the Indonesian hospital and al-Awda hospital, have ceased operations in recent days due to the ongoing Israeli attacks.
Kamal Adwan remained operational at minimal capacity, offering life-saving services to newborn infants in neonatal intensive care units and other patients in ICUs.
Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, decried the situation. “Instead of receiving aid, we receive tanks… which are shelling the [hospital] building,” he said, speaking from the Intensive Care Unit where the injured and medical staff are huddled after Israel started its bombing.
“Where is the law? Which law in the world allows for a hospital to be directly targeted?”
The Israeli military launched a new onslaught on north Gaza on 5 October, described by rights groups and experts as part of a plan to ethnically cleanse the area of Palestinians.
It began after a controversial proposal named the “Generals’ Plan” was presented to the Israeli regime, which would see areas north of the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts Gaza in two, emptied of its residents so Israel could establish a “closed military zone”.
According to the plan, anyone who chooses to stay would be considered a Hamas operative and could be killed.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, estimates that about 400,000 people remain in Gaza’s north, including Gaza City.
Residential houses bombed in Khan Yunis
In southern Gaza, Israeli airstrikes targeted residential homes in the al-Manara neighborhood of Khan Yunis, leading to the deaths of at least 38 Palestinians on Friday.
The airstrikes were coupled with a ground incursion by Israeli forces, supported by heavy air and artillery cover.
