Israel orders the evacuation of a medical facility containing nearly 400 civilians, including babies in need of oxygen and incubators.
The director of one of Gaza’s last partially functioning hospitals is pleading for help, saying Israeli forces have surrounded the medical facility.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on Monday called on the international community to act “before it is too late,” calling the situation “horrible.”
He said it would be “almost impossible” to obey an Israeli order to evacuate the facility almost 400 civilians stay indoors, including babies who need oxygen and incubators.
“The bombing continues from all directions, hitting the building, departments and staff. “This is a serious and extremely terrible situation,” Abu Safia said.
In front of the hospital in Beit Lahiya, Israeli forces are believed to have planted explosives at the gates. Witnesses said a driverless transport vehicle delivered boxes marked “Danger.”
Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum said the Israeli military had stationed automated remote-controlled vehicles called “blasting robots” around the hospital.
“(The robots) are loaded with tons of explosives that can lead to the destruction of the neighborhood,” Abu Azzoum said.
“We have seen videos released by some medical workers at Kamal Adwan Hospital showing how the Israeli military used them near the hospital,” he added, saying this could be a sign of things to come a further escalation could occur in the coming days.
“The Israeli military is systematically trying to put ultimate pressure on the medical teams by causing heavy destruction around (the hospital),” Abu Azzoum said.
Abu Safia said: “The world must understand that our hospital is being attacked with the intention of killing us and forcibly evicting us,” adding that Israeli bombings did not stop throughout the night. Destroy houses and surrounding buildings.
“We call on the international community to intervene quickly and stop this violent attack on us in order to protect the health system, the staff and the patients within it,” the hospital director said.
Since Monday morning, the hospital has been attacked in its courtyards and on the roof by quadcopters carrying bombs, again threatening the hospital’s fuel and oxygen supplies, he said.
“The situation remains extremely dangerous and requires urgent international intervention before it is too late,” the doctor said.
Abu Safia made a similar appeal on Sunday, blaming Israel direct bombing of the hospital’s intensive care unit.
More than 14 months of Israeli attacks have devastated Gaza, displacing almost all of its 2.3 million people. More than 45,000 people, mostly children and women, were killed in the offensive.
Israel Genocide of Palestinians The attack began shortly after a Hamas-led incursion into Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, in which nearly 1,100 people were killed and about 250 others captured, according to Israeli officials.
