Gaza Health Ministry officials to Mada Masr: Over 300 people forcibly expelled from Kamal Adwan Hospital

Israeli forces forcibly expelled over 300 people, including patients, their family members and companions, as well as medical staff and journalists from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in the early hours of Friday, Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Eyad Qudeih told Mada Masr. 

The hospital was the largest medical facility still operating in northeastern Gaza, where Israeli forces have conducted a systematic campaign of destruction and displacement since October. 

The campaign is estimated to have pushed over 100,000 Palestinians out of the area and to have killed several thousand more.

Kamal Adwan Hospital Director Doctor Hossam Abu Safiya told Mada Masr on Thursday night that the Israeli military, which has surrounded the facility for weeks, closed in under the cover of aerial fire. Over 80 patients suffering from serious symptoms were on the premises on Thursday night, the director said.

Safiya said that at least 10 explosive-rigged devices were detonated in the surrounding area, causing severe damage to the hospital itself and injuring members of the medical staff. 

Five staff members were killed on Thursday night, Abu Safiya said, naming them as Pediatrician Ahmed Samour, laboratory specialist Israa Abu Zaida, paramedics Abdel Majid Abu al-Aish and Maher al-Ajramy, and maintenance specialist Fares al-Hodaly. 

Mada Masr lost contact with Abu Safiya in the ensuing hours. Qudeih and Mounir al-Bursh, the general director of the Gaza Health Ministry, both told Mada Masr that the ministry had also lost contact with medics and patients at the hospital since the morning.

Qudeih said that the Israeli military used weapons to threaten those present at the hospital — around 350 individuals by his estimate, forcing them to vacate the premises at dawn. Qudeih added that a number of the patients were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital, which was raided by Israeli forces earlier this week.

Bursh said that those expelled from the vicinity were forced to wait in the hospital courtyard for hours, including some of the patients, and that oxygen supply was cut off from those who needed it during that time. 

Some of those expelled were forced to remove their clothes in the cold weather, according to the two ministry officials, who said that an unknown number of those present were arrested from the site. Their whereabouts are currently unknown, though Bursh said that the latest available information indicates that the detainees were taken to the Fakhoura School and are being held by the Israeli military in the school’s courtyard. 

Ramy Abdo, head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, republished footage of the scene which showed dozens of Palestinian men stripped down to their undergarments and walking alongside an Israeli military vehicle. 

Qudeih said that after expelling those inside the facility, Israeli forces set portions of the hospital on fire in the early hours of Friday. Journalist Mohamed al-Sharif, who has been covering conditions at the hospital in recent weeks, shared an image, he said, showed the hospital’s archive ablaze.

Israeli troops have stormed the hospital several times in recent months, killing the son of the hospital’s director during one of the raids. 

Medical facilities elsewhere in Gaza, including the Shifa Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex, have also been raided by Israeli forces over the course of their 26-month assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.