Gaza hospital out of action after Israeli army assault

AFP | Jerusalem                                                   

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

One of the last remaining hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip stopped operating on Tuesday after being stormed by the Israeli army, its director said.

Fadel Naim told AFP Israeli troops had attacked the Al-Ahli hospital and arrested doctors, medical staff and patients, destroying part of the building's grounds.

Israel's attack has "put the hospital out of action", he said. "We can't receive any patients or injured."

At least four people who were wounded by Israeli fire on Monday died on Tuesday after being injured in the Al-Ahli assault, he said.

"According to our information, there are dozens of wounded in the surrounding streets," he said.

A medic who was later released told AFP of what the detainees experienced at the hands of the troops.

"They put blindfolds on our eyes and tied us.... We were tied up for more than nine hours in the cold," medic Mohammad Araj told AFP after his release.

"They tortured whoever they wanted. We used to hear screams while we were blindfolded. We didn't know what might happen to us, if we were going to be killed or kept alive."

When contacted the military did not offer comment to these allegations.

Hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

The military accuses Hamas of having tunnels under hospitals and using the medical facilities as command centres to plan and carry out attacks against the army and Israel, a charge denied by the Islamist group.

Al-Ahli, also known as the Baptist or Ahli Arab hospital, was already heavily damaged by an explosion in its car park on October 17, resulting in at least dozens of deaths.

Militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad accused Israel, which denied responsibility and blamed a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad for that blast.

- Mounting pressure -

Israeli troops have previously raided other medical facilities in Gaza, including Al-Shifa, the territory's largest hospital, which is now functioning at minimal capacity with a very small team.

Last month Al-Shifa hospital became the focus of an extended army operation as part of its war against Hamas.

On Sunday, the World Health Organization said Al-Ahli hospital was receiving "critical patients" from Al-Shifa for surgery.

The Al-Shifa emergency department, devastated by Israeli bombardments, is "a blood bath" and "in need of resuscitation", the WHO said.

Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, said on Tuesday that another hospital in northern Gaza, Al-Awda in the Jabalia area, had been turned "into a barracks" by the Israeli army.

He said the army was holding 240 people in the hospital, "including 80 medical staff and 40 patients," and had arrested its director, doctor Ahmad Mhanna.

On Sunday WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency was "appalled by the effective destruction" of another northern Gaza hospital, Kamal Adwan, where Israeli forces carried out a multi-day operation against Hamas.

Israel is facing mounting international pressure over the rising civilian death toll and destruction of hospitals in Gaza.

The deadliest-ever war in the narrow territory began after Hamas militants poured across the border in an unprecedented attack on October 7 that killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on the latest official Israeli figures.

During their attack, militants abducted around 250 people, latest Israeli figures say.

In Israel's retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive against Hamas, at least 19,667 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.

The ministry says around 52,600 have also been wounded.