By Maryam Qarehgozlou
A horrifying scene is unfolding, the air is thick with screams and cries for help and people are fleeing in utter panic as Israeli tanks and bulldozers mercilessly rumble through the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, crushing to death scores of displaced Palestinians in tents set up in the courtyard.
The courtyard in Kamal Adwan Hospital, the only operational healthcare facility in northern Gaza, in the city of Beit Lahiya, is now full of clearly visible tracks of Israeli tanks and bulldozers after the Saturday attack which reportedly killed at least 20 people.
As the Israeli regime presses ahead with its no-holds-barred onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, hospitals in the territory have become the flashpoint and key targets.
The regime’s military has destroyed many hospitals on the pretext that they serve as “command-and-control centers” for the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement.
Hamas has rejected the claims and Israel has failed to provide any irrefutable evidence.
The regime forces have turned Gaza hospitals into military barracks, sniper sites, and detention centers for medical personnel, patients, and internally displaced people, rendering them non-operational.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 8 out of 36 hospitals across the Gaza Strip are currently functional and able to admit new patients, although services are painfully limited.
“The two major hospitals in southern Gaza are operating at three times their bed capacity while facing critical shortages of basic supplies and fuel,” the world body said in a statement.
Tens of thousands of internally displaced people are using the hospital buildings and grounds for shelter.
According to sources in Gaza, of those eight hospitals, only a few are “actually able to deliver health care services” amid damaged infrastructure, and the absence of electricity, gas and water.
What happened at Kamal Adwan Hospital?
Since the temporary seven-day truce between the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and the Israeli regime ended earlier this month, the area around Kamal Adwan Hospital has become a virtual warzone, caught in the grip of fierce ground battles and relentless Israeli air assaults.
According to reporters stationed in Gaza, heavy bombardments, air strikes and tank shelling of the health facility have destroyed the vast majority of its facilities, and all the major roads leading to it.
Last Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that two mothers and their babies were killed when Israel hit the maternity department of the hospital.
The bombing also resulted in the amputation of a leg of another woman, reports said.
According to OCHA, the hospital was accommodating 65 patients, including 12 children in the intensive care unit and six newborns in incubators at the time of the gruesome attack.
“About 3,000 internally displaced persons remain trapped in the facility and are awaiting evacuation with extreme shortages of water, food and power reported,” OCHA said.
Last Tuesday, Israeli forces raided the hospital after besieging it and shelling it for several days.
Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, said at the time that Israeli troops were rounding up men and boys, including medical staff, in the courtyard of the hospital.
The raid, according to journalists, happened under “heavy gunfire and artillery shelling.”
“Tanks pushed deeper at the gates and the entire facility is under heavy bombardment,” said one Gaza-based reporter for Al-Jazeera. “Loudspeakers are being used to call anyone aged above 15 to come out of the building with their hands in the air.”
“They (Israelis) haven’t even spared the doctors. Look, my son is under the rubble, and I can’t reach him.”
Witnesses say Israeli forces attacked patients and doctors at Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza during their raid, arresting medical personnel.#GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/GvriT0p4ak
— Press TV (@PressTV) December 17, 2023
According to a report by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israeli military forces arrested the hospital director, Dr Ahmed Al-Kahlot, and transferred more than 70 health personnel from the hospital to an unknown destination.
But it was not the end of trouble for the Kamal Adwan Hospital and its staff.
Since last Tuesday, Euro-Med Monitor reported that Israeli forces have stormed the hospital several times, creating panic among both the medical staff and patients admitted there.
On Saturday, after nine days of besieging the facility, the Israeli military intensified its attacks on the hospital and bulldozed displaced Palestinians who camped outside the hospital.
“Israeli army bulldozers drove into the hospital this morning and totally destroyed its southern section, leaving behind massive destruction following several days of non-stop attacks and siege,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said.
“Nine days ago, Israeli tanks had besieged the hospital, with Israeli snipers taking over the surrounding buildings and shooting at anyone passing by,” the rights group added.
Scores of civilians, including women and children, sleeping in their tents when the demolition occurred, were killed, according to eyewitness and medical workers cited by several media outlets.
Footage shared on social media showed tents and belongings were razed and animals gnawing at the limbs of those “buried alive.”
“People were deliberately buried alive using bulldozers. Those responsible for this crime must be held accountable and brought to justice, facing prosecution in the international criminal court,” a witness was quoted as saying by media outlets.
According to Euro-Med Monitor, Israeli bulldozers also removed the bodies of those who had been previously buried in the yard in a humiliating manner “in violation of the dead’s dignity.”
Wafa Albus, a doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital, was quoted as saying that the situation at the medical facility was “unbearable” amid relentless Israeli aggression.
“They arrested the manager of the hospital and interrogated all of the medical staff … They even let sniffer dogs on us. The dogs also attacked an old man in a wheelchair,” she said, describing how Israeli forces treated patients and doctors during the raid which lasted for several days.
Euro-Med Monitor also reported that an elderly man was killed after an Israeli military dog was let loose on him at the hospital.
Abu Mohammed, who came to look for his son, stood crying outside the hospital courtyard.
“They demolished the building. They killed the doctors. Even the doctors were not spared. They left nothing behind,” he was quoted as saying by media.
“My son is here. I don’t know how I will find him,” Abu Mohammed said, pointing to the rubble.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila has called for a probe into the situation at Kamal Adwan.
“The world must take serious action to uncover the details of this case, and not take lightly or remain silent about the information coming from the Gaza Strip,” a press release by the ministry said, according to Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kana’ani also called on the international community to conduct a probe into reports of Palestinians buried alive at the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
“After the killing of hundreds of Palestinians and the action of the Zionists in preventing their bodies from being taken out, the area of the Shifa Hospital in Gaza was turned into a mass grave,” he said.
Euro-Med Monitor also urged an “international investigation” in a press release issued on Saturday.
“An independent international investigation must be opened into the horrific violations that the facility witnessed over the past several days against patients, displaced people, and medical staff as part of Israeli’s deliberate and systematic targeting of health facilities in the Gaza Strip since 7 October,” it said.
