Palestinian Well being Minister Mai al-Kaila has referred to as for an “pressing probe” after Israeli forces have been accused of crushing Palestinians, together with wounded sufferers, utilizing bulldozers within the yard of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.
On Saturday, docs and different witnesses stated Israeli forces bulldozed tents housing displaced Palestinians close to the hospital – one of many 11 hospitals nonetheless functioning inside Gaza since Israel launched its navy offensive on October 7 – and crushed them to demise.
Witnesses instructed Al Jazeera that civilians have been intentionally focused.
“Individuals have been buried alive utilizing bulldozers. Who may do this? All those that dedicated this crime needs to be dropped at justice and brought to the worldwide felony court docket,” a witness stated.
A number of movies shared on social media additionally seem to indicate individuals crushed below the rubble in entrance of the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
‘It crushed individuals and their tents’
“The bulldozer has destroyed an excessive amount of the hospital’s amenities,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah in southern Gaza, stated on Sunday morning. “It crushed individuals and their tents within the courtyard and a few 20 individuals have been crushed and buried below the rubble,” he stated.
In a press assertion, in response to Palestine’s information company Wafa, Well being Minister al-Kaila urged the worldwide group to analyze what occurred on the hospital and never ignore the “struggle crimes” going down in Gaza.
She additionally highlighted that the Israeli military destroyed the southern a part of the hospital, and stated 12 infants stay contained in the incubators within the hospital with out water or meals.
Whereas Israeli forces have now withdrawn from the hospital, the military stated it has detained 90 individuals, and located weapons and munitions contained in the hospital after this raid.
Israeli forces raided the hospital on Tuesday after besieging and shelling it for a number of days.
‘Worry and horror at hospital’
Since Kamal Adwan Hospital was raided, it has been crammed with worry and horror in response to docs.
“The wounded want operations however we can’t do something,” Wafa Albus, a health care provider within the hospital, instructed Al Jazeera.
Pointing at a lady and a person mendacity on the ground, she stated there have been no mattresses for sufferers.
“Is that this a hospital? This case is insufferable,” she stated.
She additionally described how the Israeli forces handled sufferers and docs throughout the raid which lasted for a number of days.
“They arrested the supervisor of the hospital and interrogated all the medical employees … They even let sniffer canines on us. The canines additionally attacked an previous man in a wheelchair.”
Earlier this week, Leo Cans, Docs With out Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) head of mission for Palestine, instructed Al Jazeera that the state of affairs in Kamal Adwan is catastrophic.
“We’re outraged by what’s happening,” he stated, including that medics in Gaza have been working in situations similar to World Struggle I.
“We’re working on the ground. Youngsters are arriving with very dangerous accidents, and [surgeons] should do a number of operations however there are not any extra beds,” he stated.
Al Jazeera’s Hani identified how the raids carried out on the Kamal Adwan Hospital have been just like different hospitals earlier within the offensive. Al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s largest medical facility situated in north Gaza, stays paralysed after it was focused by Israeli forces beforehand.
The UN well being company on Saturday delivered medical provides and medicines to the hospital, which “must urgently resume at the very least primary operations to proceed serving the 1000’s in want of lifesaving healthcare”.
“Solely a handful of docs and some nurses, along with 70 volunteers” have been nonetheless working below what WHO employees referred to as “unbelievably difficult circumstances,” it stated.
Israeli troops had additionally raided the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, an space devastated by greater than two months of relentless Israeli bombardment.
The World Well being Group says solely 11 out of 36 of Gaza’s hospitals stay partially purposeful and pleaded for them to stay intact.
“We can’t afford to lose any healthcare amenities or hospitals,” Rik Peeperkorn, WHO consultant for the occupied Palestinian territories, instructed a UN press briefing earlier this week by video hyperlink from Gaza.
“We hope, we plead that this won’t occur.”