Hamas: Israel’s raid on North Gaza’s last hospital ‘war crime’
Hamas: Israel’s raid on North Gaza’s last hospital ‘war crime’
M.U.H
28/12/202429
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has condemned as a “war crime” the Israeli raid on Kamal Adwan hospital, the last remaining in north Gaza, and the massacres committed in its vicinity.
In a statement on Friday, Hamas said the Israeli raid is “a war crime added to a long series of crimes committed by the criminal enemy against our people.”
Israeli forces raided the hospital, forcing its staff members, sick and injured patients, and displaced people to leave it, after conducting overnight strikes around the hospital which killed 53 people, including five staff members.
After the hospital was evacuated, the Health Ministry said a fire had erupted at the hospital and spread to the rest of the medical complex.
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 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.
Hamas said Israel and the US, “which is complicit in the brutal genocidal war in Gaza”, are fully responsible for the lives of the patients and staff members who have been prevented from communicating, amid reports of abuse and detentions.
The movement also urged the international community and the United Nations to “break their silence on” and “take measures” to stop the genocidal war on Gaza, and work to hold “the rogue entity and its terrorist leaders” accountable for the crimes against humanity they committed against Palestinians.
'Israel seeks to empty north Gaza of its people'
The Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said the raid is one of the last steps taken by Israel to “accomplish its mission of completely destroying the health system” in northern Gaza as part of its genocidal war against Palestinians.
The group warned that the Israeli military is “systematically and repeatedly” targeting the few medical teams that are still present in the north, as part of its scheme to completely destroy the health system there as it seeks to “empty it of its people.”
Euro-Med described the repeated attacks on Gaza hospitals as “a disgrace to humanity”, urging the international organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and the World Health Organization, to shoulder their responsibility and protect the hospitals and their staff and patients.
In response to the hospital raid, spokesperson for the UN’s World Health Organization Margaret Harris expressed concern about the deteriorating health situation in Gaza.
“We are witnessing the targeting of civilians and the health system in Gaza,” Harris told Al Jazeera, adding “What Gaza’s hospitals are exposed to is horrific, and what we are witnessing represents a punishment for the population.”
Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 45,436 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 108,038 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.
