General
Strike on Gaza Hospital Destroys U.N. Supplies, Palestinian Officials Say
Israeli troops had withdrawn from the facility, Kamal Adwan Hospital, after a raid that involved the arrests of most of the medical staff. The Israeli military said it was “unaware of a strike” there.
Israeli forces struck one of the last functioning hospitals in besieged northern Gaza on Thursday, destroying a stockpile of medical supplies that had been delivered to the facility days ago by the World Health Organization, according to Palestinian officials and news media reports.
The Israeli military said it was “unaware of a strike” on the facility, Kamal Adwan Hospital, but said it was reviewing the reports. Israeli troops withdrew from the hospital on Monday after a three-day raid during which they arrested most of the medical staff, and two children died, Gazan health officials said.
The military said the people it detained in that raid were suspected of being fighters with the militant group Hamas, which led the attack on southern Israel last October that set off the war in Gaza. On Thursday, Israel repeated its claim that Hamas “has embedded terrorist infrastructure and operates within the Kamal Adwan Hospital.”
The Gazan health ministry said that the strike on Thursday had significantly damaged “the remaining medicines and medical supplies” at the hospital, in the northern town of Jabaliya.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyah, the hospital’s director, pleaded for help in a recorded message that was shared on Thursday by Dr. Munir Al Barsh, the director general of the health ministry. In it, Dr. Abu Safiyah asked “anyone with surgical expertise” who might hear the message to immediately report to Kamal Adwan Hospital.
“We currently have no surgeons on site,” he said. “There are children with abdominal shrapnel injuries who need exploratory surgery and bleeding control before it is too late.”
