Israel's eviction notices on Kamal Adwan Hospital almost impossible to fulfil, says director

One of the enclave's last partially functioning hospitals may be in its final days as medics look for ways to move patients

A damaged bed in Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza. Reuters

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Moving patients from Gaza's besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital will be "next to impossible" due to a lack of ambulances and staff, the hospital's director has said.

On Sunday Israel's military told the hospital's staff they needed to leave as patients, their families and medics huddled in hallways in an attempt to protect themselves from Israeli tank fire, snipers and drone strikes, patients and Gaza's Ministry of Health told The National. But the hospital's director, Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, says the order is impossible to fulfil.

"We currently have nearly 400 civilians inside the hospital, including babies in the neonatal unit, whose lives depend on oxygen and incubators. We cannot evacuate these patients safely without assistance, equipment, and time," said Dr Abu Safiya told Reuters. He said bombing had been almost non-stop for days on end, calling for the international community to take action to stop the Israeli actions near the hospital "before it is too late".

“It is clear that we face daily, continuous threats. The shelling persists from all directions, affecting the building, departments and staff. This is an extremely dangerous and terrifying situation," he later told The National.

A Palestinian man gestures toward ambulances transporting victims of Israeli bombing to the Kamal Adwan Hospital in October. AFP

“The bombing continued throughout the night, destroying nearby homes and buildings. Since this morning, the hospital has been targeted again with bombs dropped in its courtyards and on its roof by drones, once more threatening our supplies of fuel and oxygen.” He added a generator had been struck, putting it out of action.

Eviction orders have become a core part of Israeli operations in Gaza, and spread to Lebanon when the war there escalated in October before a ceasefire was reached. Residents are informed of Israel's instructions for them to leave via social media, letter drops and announcements from drones hovering above them.

The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates around 80.5 per cent of the Gaza Strip is under active Israeli-issued evacuation order, and 1.9 million people are displaced. Last week, aid groups Oxfam and ActionAid said the forced displacement orders Israel imposed on Lebanon were "woefully inadequate, unnecessarily dangerous and likely illegal".

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters on Abu Safiya's remarks. It said that on Friday it had sent fuel and food to the hospital and helped evacuate more than 100 patients and caregivers to other Gaza hospitals, some in co-ordination with the Red Cross, for their own safety.

On Monday, Dr Abu Safiya posted a video filmed from an upper floor of the hospital purporting to show an Israeli tank placing a box marked "danger" outside the hospital gates, which he said was filled with explosives.

Before the war began last October, sparked by an attack on southern Israel by the Hamas group in which 1,200 were killed and more than 250 hostages taken into the enclave, Kamal Adwan was the largest hospital in Gaza's north, according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa, serving around 400,000 people. More than 45,300 people have been killed in Gaza.

In the surrounding town of Beit Lahia, Gazans continued to shelter in what buildings still stand, terrified to leave in case they are picked off by Israeli forces, who say they are acting against Hamas in the area. "What is happening chills the bones," Ihab Ghaban, who is trapped in Beit Lahia, told The National. "The bodies of the martyrs are subjected to horrors beyond words, as stray dogs feed on human flesh in front of us, and we are powerless to stop it."

“During the day, someone is killed, and their body remains in the street because it is impossible to retrieve it. By the next morning, we find that stray dogs have devoured most of the corpse.” Over the last day, 58 people have been killed in Israeli fire across the strip.

“The daily scenes we witness in northern Gaza are horrifying – beyond what any human can bear. The entire world must act, for what we are enduring is a full-fledged crime. Had it not been for the complicity of the US and Western countries with the occupation, we would not have reached this state."