Palestinian Health Ministry: 2 patients die without access to care as Israeli military occupies Kamal Adwan Hospital

Two patients have died without access to care in the emergency unit of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, said the Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra on Thursday morning. 

They died due to the Israeli military which, amid a complete invasion and occupation of the facility,  prevented medical staff from providing treatment to ten patients still on the ward, according to Qidra.

Airstrikes have targeted the hospital for weeks, with Occupation forces conducting ground operations in the strip gradually surrounding Kamal Adwan — one of the few still partially functioning hospitals in northern Gaza — followed by a full scale invasion on Tuesday.

All of the men at the hospital, including displaced people, medical staff, wounded individuals, and patients have been arrested by the Occupation and interrogated under torture and severe beatings,  announced the Palestinian Health Ministry's official Telegram channel on Wednesday afternoon.

Women staff were released on Wednesday following their arrest Tuesday, said a United Nations report.

Some of the detainees were released, but as they were returning to the hospital they were shot at, resulting in the injury of five individuals, said the ministry’s statement. The fate of the remaining detainees remains unknown.

Hospital Director Ahmed al-Kahlout is still under arrest, said Qidra on Thursday, as one of 70 people still held by the Occupation forces in an unknown location, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs situation report. A spokesperson for the Occupation forces claimed on Thursday that 70 people who surrendered to the Occupation military and intelligence forces at the Kamal Adwan Hospital were Hamas “activists,” noting that they had been taken away for investigation.

Similar claims emerged from the Occupation last week. Images were broadcast on Israeli TV showing detainees stripped of their clothes in Jabalia. Officials claimed that they were Hamas members. Yet Palestinian family members and relatives identified some of the detainees from the images, denying that they had any links to Hamas.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is in Beit Lahia, one of the areas in northern Gaza that has become unrecognizable under over two months of relentless airstrikes and in the grip of the Occupation’s ground invasion. Last week, the hospital was besieged by Occupation ground troops, its surroundings subject to shelling and gunfire, movement inside restricted and the supply of water, food and electricity to all of its departments cut off.

Twelve children are still in the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit without life support devices or milk, putting their lives at risk, said the ministry on Wednesday.

2,500 displaced people who were taking shelter in the hospital have also been forced to leave, said Qidra. 

Around 86 percent of Gaza’s population, or as many as 1.9 million people, are thought to have been displaced from their homes thus far. Many of those displaced in Israel’s ongoing assault on the strip have gathered at the remaining hospitals for shelter. 

Hospitals have been a major target in the Occupation aggression, with invasions similar to that taking place at Kamal Adwan targeting the Shifa Medical Complex and the Awda Hospital in Jabaliya.

At present, only 11 out of the strip’s 36 hospitals are operational, with aid organizations flagging that amid the lack of healthcare, resources and overcrowded conditions, disease is spreading fast and likely to kill as many as the 18,000 people who have been killed by Israel.