The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, surrounded by Israeli drones and tanks, has asked the international community to intervene to protect the hospital in the northern Gaza Strip as Israel ordered both patients and hospital staff to evacuate.
The hospital remains one of the few still operating in the region, where only a handful of doctors are left to treat patients as vital medical supplies are severely scarce or completely depleted.
“We are now once again faced with direct bombing of the intensive care unit,” said Dr. Hussam Abu Safia made a video statement on Saturday evening, calling on the international community to protect the hospital and its 66 remaining patients and medical staff.
“The kindergarten, maternity ward and all departments of the hospital are being attacked by the occupying forces with all types of weapons, including sniper fire, tank grenades and quadcopters,” he added.
“For more than an hour, shells have been raining down on us from all corners, kilometers and directions.”
Reporting from nearby Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said: “What we are seeing now is a deliberate attack on the health facility.”
“The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of the hospital, but it has also created an intimidating environment that makes people feel it is unsafe to leave the hospital.”
Mahmoud added that contact with those besieged in the hospital was lost overnight.
Footage confirmed by Al Jazeera showed wounded Palestinians sheltering in the hospital’s corridors, away from windows, after Israeli forces opened fire on the facility. Still, Mahmoud said, “many injuries” were reported as bullets pierced the walls and also damaged equipment.
Al Jazeera’s Arab correspondents in Gaza also said they had lost contact with journalists in hospital during the ongoing attack. According to the broadcaster, the al-Awda hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp was also attacked.
The relentless Israeli attacks on medical facilities, including Kamal Adwan, prompted a response from World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who called them “deeply worrying.” He called for an “immediate ceasefire” in the area, which has been under siege for more than 70 days.
More than 14 months of continuous Israeli attacks have devastated the enclave and displaced almost its entire 2.4 million population. More than 45,000 people, mostly children and women, were killed in the offensive, which drew condemnation around the world.
Israel justifies its deadly attacks in response to the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, in which nearly 1,100 people were killed and about 250 captured.
Abu Safia said Israeli forces were using the pretext that the hospital was a combat zone to justify attacks on the hospital.
“We hold the world responsible for what is happening and for our repeated appeals,” he said, adding that there “seems to be no response” to the international community’s pleas.
34 Palestinians were killed in one day
Gaza health officials said Israel killed 34 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, including 19 since Sunday morning.
Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud said Gaza had become a “killing box with attacks around the clock”, as four children were among the five killed in the Israeli attack on Jabalia on Sunday.
At least eight people, including four children, were killed in another attack on a school being converted into housing for Palestinians displaced by the war. The Israeli military confirmed the attack on the school on Saturday, saying it was a Hamas “command and control center.”
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorated, particularly in the northern areas, which have been under military siege for weeks.
The World Food Program said in a statement that three of these had been approved.
Israel has confronted itself allegations from genocide because of the blockade of the delivery of aid and basic supplies to the Gaza Strip. In the latest report, Human Rights Watch said earlier this week that since October last year, Israeli authorities have “deliberately denied Palestinians access to sufficient water they need to survive in the Gaza Strip.”
“Over a million children, the entire population of Gaza, has been affected by this war,” Rachel Cummings, Save the Children’s humanitarian director in Gaza, told Al Jazeera.
“We are seeing that children are being severely affected by this onslaught, but the medium and longer term impacts are frightening,” she said. “We provide immediate relief from suffering, but we know that what we do is just a drop in the ocean.”
Since October, WFP has been calling for food deliveries to areas in #GazaNorthern Governorate (Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahya, Jabalia) 101 times.
97% were rejected or obstructed on site – this is the third approval.
— World Food Program (@WFP) December 21, 2024
The ongoing attacks come even as Palestinian groups say a ceasefire agreement is “closer than ever.”
In a rare joint statement, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said a ceasefire in Gaza and a deal on the release of prisoners were possible if Israel did not impose new conditions in the negotiations.
On October 7 last year, Palestinian fighters took about 250 prisoners, 96 of whom are still living in the Gaza Strip, including 34 who the Israeli military says are dead.
