Israeli troops forced the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and many patients, some of them on foot, arrived at another hospital miles away in Gaza City, the territory's health ministry said on Tuesday.
The Indonesian Hospital is one of the Gaza Strip's few still partially functioning hospitals, on its northern edge, an area that has been under intense Israeli military pressure for nearly three months.
Israel says its operation around the three northern Gaza communities surrounding the hospital - Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia - is targeting Hamas militants.
A statement from the Israeli military said the Indonesian Hospital was being used by fighters to launch attacks against Israeli troops and that it "facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, medical personnel, and patients from the area both before and during the operation".
Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate northern Gaza to create a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
Munir Al-Bursh, director of the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, said the Israeli army had ordered hospital officials to evacuate it on Monday, before storming it in the early hours of Tuesday and forcing those inside to leave.
He said two other medical facilities in northern Gaza, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan Hospitals, were also subject to frequent assaults by Israeli troops.
Israeli forces have operated in the vicinity of the Kamal Adwan hospital since Monday, medics said.
Officials at the three hospitals have refused orders by Israel to evacuate their facilities or leave patients unattended since the new military offensive began on Oct. 5.
Israel says it has been facilitating the delivery of medical supplies, fuel and the transfer of patients to other hospitals in the enclave during that period in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said they resisted a new order by the army to evacuate hundreds of patients, their companions and staff, adding that the hospital has been under constant Israeli fire that damaged generators, oxygen pumps and parts of the building.
An Israeli security official said the area was a Hamas stronghold.
"Kamal Adwan is at the heart of the most complex fighting in Jabaliya," he said. "We are being very careful."
NEW STRIKES
Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment continued elsewhere in the enclave and medics said at least nine Palestinians, including a member of the civil emergency service, were killed in four separate military strikes on Tuesday.
Later on Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike killed six people in Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip, bringing the day's death toll to 15, medics said.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's campaign against Hamas has since killed more than 45,200 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
A new bid by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States to end the fighting and release Israeli and foreign hostages has gained momentum this month, though no breakthrough has been reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said progress had been made in hostage negotiations with Hamas but that he did not know how much longer it would take to see the results.
Gaps between Israel and Hamas over a possible Gaza ceasefire have narrowed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials' remarks on Monday, though crucial differences have yet to be resolved.
© Thomson Reuters 2024.
17 Comments
sakurasuki
Is that surprising move from occupier, last ICU hospital in north Gaza is also being closed.
What that has to do with freeing hostage?
https://www.latintimes.com/fire-shut-down-last-operational-icu-north-gaza-targeted-attack-israeli-forces-569628
kurisupisu
The Israelis
just want to destroy and force the population away from their land!
Why?
Palestinian land is the prize.
NB
The agenda of Hamas is fundamentally genocidal. Between the river and the sea there are two nations, and both are entitled to exist. A hospital should not be used as a warehouse of rockets.
dobre vam zajebava
still "no problem" for many...democracies with western values...?
GuruMick
NB above ...I dont know if Hamas agenda is "genocidal "
What I do know is that one side has billions in US funding, a standing army, airforce and Navy and has nuclear weapons.
The other side does not.
One side has exercised a blockade of decades restricting all manner of goods from import.
One side even calculates the minimum calories for a human survival and allows imports of food to only this level.
One side has a PM with an ICJ warrant for arrest for war crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war.
One side has all the power, holds all the cards and yet continues to deny and squeeze any rights to the other, the right to self determination being foremost .
There is no equality in this conflict.
Fos
NB
Even on a Christmas Day the usual suspects are spreading the Netanyahu’s propaganda. People with no knowledge reiterate what the military tells them to write. No dignity, no morals
A reminder that nearly 70% of Gaza war dead are women and children, UN says
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn5wel11pgdo
And then you wonder why is Israel's protracted impunity tolerated?
starpunk
Yeah, some way to celebrate Hannukah which starts tomorrow BTW. And those Israeli hostages are still in Hamas captivity, but Nutty Yahoo don't care. Not at all.
Shame on you, Benjamin Netanyahu. You're not a Jew, you're a JERK.
Oklahoma_Osaka
If Israel thinks there needs to be buffer zones all around it for its security, why not just create one within their current existing boundaries instead of continuously seizing more territory?
WoodyLee
SAVAGES, what else would you expect from a CHILD KILLER.
WoodyLee
The so called Free World Democracy and human rights values are as good as their Tyranny and dictatorship when you sit back and watch children getting killed, burned and starved to death by blood thirsty religious fanatics.
u_s__reamer
Such brutal, sadistic cruelty has been taken straight out of the brown playbook. Rule of law and humanitarian values have been trashed before our very eyes and exposed the brazen hypocrisy of power all for huge profits from killing life and destroying property. This inhumanity must be mercilessly resisted.
Wasabi
And still the terrorist keeps the hostages because they like this situation and do not care about the people.
gaijintraveller
Netanyahu doesn't want the hostages. He wants the war, the killing to continue. I suspect it may get even worse when Trump becomes president. The Israelis hold thousands of Palestinian hostages and not just from Gaza, from the Occupied Territories in the West Bank.
This is genocide and is supported by the US.
NB
Hamas must release the hostages that it kidnapped, as well as surrender to the IDF, immediately. Then it would be possible to transfer the strip to the governance of the Arab League, and begin to rehabilitate it.
NB
Just listen to what they say. Just read what they write. Just watch what thye do. Why are copies of the book "Mein Kampf" kept in their houses?
Zaphod
Were we not repeatedly told that all of Norhern Gaza consists of bombed out ruins, where the IDF conducts a genocide? Now we find out that there are intact neighbourhoods with functioning hospitals.
The level cognitive dissonance that the mainstream media expects from its consumers is astonishing.
Zaphod
NB
Not astonishing at all. Ali Amin Husseini was an advisor to Hitler, and Hassan Al-Bannah stated very clearly the compatibility with Nazism. Note that Hamas is an offshoot of the Al Bannahs Muslim Brotherhood.