Contact lost with Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital after scores killed in Israeli bombing

Israel forces patients and staff out of last functioning hospital in the north of the strip, which has been under siege for weeks

Hossam Abu Safiyeh, director of Kamal Adwan hospital, shows the damage caused by the ongoing Israeli military assault in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. Reuters

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Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Friday, evicting patients and staff, only hours after about 50 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes on a building in the complex.

Five medical staff were killed in the bombing of the last functioning hospital in the north on Thursday evening, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. Dr Ahmed Samoud, lab technician Israa Abu Zaida, technologist Fares Al Hudali, and paramedics Abdul Majeed Abu Al Aish and Maher Al Ajrami were killed while sheltering in the building with their families.

By Friday afternoon, the ministry said it had lost contact with staff inside the building, which has been a target of the Israeli military for weeks. “The occupation forces are inside the hospital now and they are burning it,” Munir Al Bursh, ministry director, said in a statement.

About 350 people were inside the hospital when the Israeli raid began, including 75 patients – some with severe injuries – and 180 medical staff and workers. “The occupation army is forcibly transferring patients and the injured under the threat of weapons and gun barrels to the Indonesian Hospital, which lacks medical supplies, water, medicine and even electricity and generators,” the ministry said on Friday afternoon.

The Israeli military said it had made efforts to mitigate harm to civilians and had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel before the operation” but gave no details.

Eviction

A voice message from a nurse at the site also said patients were being taken to the Indonesian Hospital, about 8km away, while flames engulfed Kamal Adwan.

“We heard the army entered it and burnt the remaining departments. We were forced out and left the patients. We don’t know what happened to them,” she said.

“I wish everyone would talk about this,” said Alaa Abu Okal, referring to the international community. “Our fate is unknown. [Israel] are clearing people to the Indonesian and have cut off the oxygen. Some patients are under the threat of death. We're surrounded from all places.

“There's fire everywhere. We hope you deliver our message.” She said the hospital's chief Dr Hossam Abu Safiya had been threatened with arrest and could be detained at any moment. The Ministry of Health confirmed Dr Abu Safiya “had received a clear and direct threat: 'This time we will arrest you.'”

It added that staff at the hospital were “forced to strip in the cold” and “taken to an unknown location”. Video shared by the Palestinian news agency Wafa purported to show a group of people walking barefoot, some in only their underwear, over the surrounding rubble.

A female hospital worker in Gaza told Wafa how the Israeli military searched women staff and forced them to leave their patients behind.

Shurooq Al Rantisi, a member of the lab staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital, told the Wafa news agency that the Israeli military wanted them to remove their hijabs.

She said they refused and the Israelis instead searched them in small groups before allowing them to leave the hospital.

The Israeli military said it was looking for “terrorist infrastructure” in the area of the hospital. “The troops are conducting operations in the area, while mitigating harm to uninvolved civilians, patients, and medical personnel,” it added.

Kamal Adwan has been under siege from the Israeli military, which has been attacking the complex with bombs and drones for weeks, claiming it has become a hideout for “terrorist operatives”. The blockade of aid by Israel has exacerbated the suffering, with hospital management saying patients and medical staff are trapped inside without food or medicine.

Israel has been accused by international organisations of committing a genocide in Gaza, where 90 per cent of the 2.3 million population has been displaced.

Yasri Abu Al Jibreen, who was trapped inside, endured a harrowing night amid the chaos and bombardment. “A drone-dropped bomb struck the hospital's archive department, causing a massive fire that engulfed the entire section,” he said.

“With no resources available to extinguish the blaze and the situation too dangerous for anyone to approach, the fire raged unchecked. Fortunately, the archive was housed in a separate building away from the wards where patients and medical staff were.”

Hours later as dawn broke, Israeli military vehicles began advancing towards the hospital from several directions, reaching the courtyards, besieging the compound and broadcasting demands for Dr Abu Safiya to come out with everyone inside the building before a raid.

“The staff immediately began organising the evacuation, preparing to empty the hospital of patients, wounded individuals, medical teams and displaced civilians who had sought refuge there,” Mr Al Jibreen added.

Israeli forces are also focusing their military campaign on Gaza city, to which thousands had fled from the northernmost parts of the enclave Palestinian under Israeli commands, seeking refuge. Civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal said the situation for residents in Gaza city is now untenable.

“Hundreds have fallen as martyrs or been wounded due to the intensity of these Israeli strikes on Gaza city in recent days, mostly women and children,” he said. Israel has repeatedly said it is trying to minimise civilian casualties, but Mr Basal said the prevalence of non-combatants among the victims undermines that claim.

With every attack, he said, civil defence and rescue teams are facing increasing challenges in recovering bodies and rescuing the injured, often having to use their bare hands in the absence of equipment and resources. Thousands remain trapped under rubble.

“There have been many strikes where we couldn’t even reach the victims, such as the attack last night on the Foureh family on Al Nadeem Street in Al Zaitoun neighbourhood,” Mr Basal said. “The house was bombed with its residents inside and we were unable to provide assistance due to the dangers in the area, its proximity to locations of advancing Israeli tanks and the Israeli army’s refusal to allow co-ordinated efforts with the International Committee of the Red Cross.”

Elsewhere in northern Gaza, Israeli bombardments have intensified, with much of the area under siege since October. Mahmoud Junaid, 31, living in the north-western neighbourhood of Sheikh Radwan, said bombing began to escalate a week ago.

“Without exaggeration, there’s a strike or demolition every minute,” he said. Every time a strike hits feels like an earthquake, he said. “I live in an apartment on the third floor and with every demolition, I feel the apartment swaying from side to side, as if it’s going to collapse.”

With ceasefire talks still going on before the Trump administration taking over in the US in January, Mr Junaid said he thinks Israel is in a “race against time” with its goal of destroying as much of Gaza as possible.