Wounded left to die as Israeli forces blockade Gaza hospital, witnesses say

Military preventing ambulances from reaching injured at Kamal Adwan Hospital, say authorities, doctors and residents

A boy mourns near the body of his father and other Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike at Al Aqsa hospital in Deir Al Balah. Reuters

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Israeli forces have surrounded a hospital in northern Gaza and opened fire on it, local authorities and witnesses have told The National, with ambulances unable to reach the injured as the military lays siege to an area where 300,000 people live.

Doctors Without Borders said it had received reports of people dying from their wounds after emergency crews were unable to bypass the Israeli blockade. The NGO said evictions and bombing of homes were turning the north into an “unlivable wasteland”.

Israeli officials previously announced plans to turn Gaza's north into a military zone, and have ordered people to leave the cities of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia.

“We are unable to retrieve these martyrs due to the occupation forces targeting ambulance and civil defence crews,” Gaza government civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal told The National on Tuesday.

Gaza's ministry of health said Kamal Adwan Hospital had been surrounded and fired on by Israeli troops. Israeli forces on Tuesday gave staff and patients 24 hours to leave the hospital, as well as two other health facilities – the Indonesian Hospital and Al Awda Hospital. At least 300 patients, including 80 in intensive care, were being treated at the two sites, the ministry said.

Witnesses told The National that people had been shot by Israeli forces while attempting to leave their homes under Israeli orders. Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said the Israelis did not provide a safe corridor or evacuation plan. “The occupation is trying to completely disable the healthcare system in northern Gaza, preventing medical services for the injured and those trapped in their homes,” Dr Safiya said.

He said Israeli forces had threatened the hospital would be attacked in the same way as Gaza's Al Shifa hospital if people did not co-operate. In April, the Israeli army conducted a two-week operation against Al Shifa that resulted in dozens of deaths, hundreds of arrests and extensive destruction in the area.

Mahmoud Abu Al Jidian spoke to The National from inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, where he was tending to his injured brother. The 42-year-old said Israeli forces were targeting “anyone who moves”.

“My brother can’t move, and he needs an ambulance, but Israeli forces have refused to grant permission for ambulances to evacuate the patients,” he said. “The army demanded the evacuation of the hospital without providing a safe passage for civilians, the injured, or medical staff. This is something we absolutely cannot do, so we have chosen to remain.”

Elsewhere in Gaza, Israei forces launched fresh air strikes on Wednesday. Twelve people, including nine members of the same family, were killed in two attacks in Gaza city's Al Shujaiya neighbourhood and Al Nuseirat refugee camp, Wafa reported.

Mohammed Hajila, a neighbour of the family killed, said he witnessed the aftermath of the strike. “We heard the sound of an explosion, so we went outside to see what had happened,” he said. “We found that one of our neighbours' houses had been completely destroyed, with the residents still inside. We tried to save those trapped in the house, but unfortunately, we couldn’t reach any of the bodies. No one survived.”

“There was no warning before the attack,” said another neighbour, Khaled Al Selk. In Nuseirat, three people, including a child, were killed in a strike on another home, Wafa reported.

Many Palestinians displaced from their homes by Israeli operations have been forced to move south to overcrowded humanitarian zones in Al Mawasi and Deir Al Balah, where one million people live in dire conditions without proper access to food, water, shelter or sanitation.

Doctors Without Borders said the mass evictions and bombing were “effectively emptying out the whole north of the strip of Palestinian life”. Aid convoys have been prohibited from accessing the besieged areas. “No humanitarian supplies have been allowed to enter the area since October 1,” the NGO said.

However, some Gazans are refusing to leave, knowing they will be unlikely to ever return. Tariq Sultan, 31, who is living in the Jabalia refugee camp, said heading south was not an option.

“Even if they empty the hospitals and block all the roads, we will not head south and leave our homes and land. We will not repeat the mistakes of our parents who fled before. The army is lying about so-called safe zones – there is no safe place, whether in the north or the south of Gaza,” he told The National.

“People here will remain steadfast in their homes … They may move from one spot to another within the area, but heading south is not an option.”