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SvennoJ on 27 December 2024
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Fires reported in parts of Kamal Adwan Hospital

Al Jazeera correspondents and local media outlets are reporting that fires broke out in parts of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, after the Israeli military ordered medical staff and patients to evacuate northern Gaza’s last medical facility.

According to the reports, the fires were located in the operating room, laboratory and emergency departments. This comes after the Health Ministry said the Israeli army forced the evacuation of the hospital.


Video shows stripped Palestinians forcefully displaced from north Gaza

Videos posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking unit show lines of Palestinians, stripped to their underwear, being marched with their hands held high in surrender. This footage comes hours after the Israeli military issued an order for the forced evacuation of Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The director of Gaza’s Health Ministry confirmed to Al Jazeera that more than 300 people were forced out of the medical facility.

A post on X by an Israeli journalist for the right-wing outlet Channel 14, which accompanied the footage, suggested staff and patients were being forced to move southward, and claimed without providing any evidence that Kamal Adwan Hospital had become a “terrorist headquarters” being used by Hamas and other groups.

Israel has laid siege to the hospital for at least a week, killing people in strikes around and inside the hospital.


Israeli army says it launched raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital

The Israeli army has issued a statement confirming it launched a raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital, claiming the medical facility “serves as a Hamas terrorist stronghold in northern Gaza”.

Without providing evidence, it accused Hamas of violating international law by “abusing civilian infrastructure and the [Gaza] population as shields for its terrorist activities”. The statement added that the military ordered the evacuation of the hospital to “mitigate harm to the civilian population in the area”.


Fire at Kamal Adwan Hospital burns down key departments: Gaza ministry

The fire at the northern Gaza hospital is spreading to the rest of the medical complex, according to a statement by the enclave’s health ministry.

In a statement on Telegram, the ministry said the hospital is “suffering from a stifling siege, as the operating and surgery departments, laboratory, maintenance, ambulance units and warehouses have been completely burned”. “The fire has now begun to spread to all buildings,” the statement added.

It also said, “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, medicines, and even electricity and generators.”

The ministry said the Israeli army “has dealt a fatal blow to the remaining health system in northern Gaza” with its attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The statement also announced that Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, has received “a clear and direct threat” from the Israeli forces for his arrest.


‘No information’ on fate of patients, medical staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital

Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli forces burned buildings and destroyed all power generators at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

  • The ministry also said it has no information on the fate of patients and medical staff who were inside the hospital.
  • Al-Awda Hospital, another health facility in northern Gaza, has also been directly targeted by Israeli forces.
  • The ministry called on international institutions to find alternative ways to ensure the continuity of health services in northern Gaza and stop “serious Israeli violations against patients and health facilities”.
  • It added that Gaza also faces “a huge deficit in the clinical capacity of hospitals”.


Attacks on medical facilities ‘flagrant violation’ of international law

Lex Takkenberg, an international lawyer and former senior UNRWA official, said the “normal presumption” in international humanitarian law is that medical facilities and schools “must be respected”.

“It should not be subject to a search, attacked or any other form of interference,” Takkenberg told Al Jazeera.

“The clear pattern of attacks on medical facilities, of which these latest and ongoing attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital … are once again flagrant violations of international humanitarian law constituting flagrant violations of international criminal law.”