Surrounded by the sound of bombs, frightened patients huddled far away from windows, fuel dwindling and clean water running out. The acting director of Al Awda Hospital, one of the last remaining hospitals in northern Gaza, said he was grappling with a severe sense of deja vu. V.
“No one can move or approach the windows,” said acting director Dr. Mohammad Salha. During an 18-day siege in al-Awda in December, three medical workers were shot dead from a window.
Dr. Salha said about 150 people, including doctors, injured patients and two infants born a few days earlier, have been trapped inside al-Awda since Sunday as Israeli forces launch a new offensive in the north.
Dr. Salha said in a telephone interview and voice message that the hospital was effectively surrounded by Israeli forces. People in hospitals cannot leave, outside aid cannot reach them, and ambulances are unable to respond to calls to transport the injured.
Médecins Sans Frontières, which has staff in the area, reported that the hospital was surrounded by tanks on Monday. The emergency medical team dispatched to the hospital by the World Health Organization (WHO) was forced to relocate on May 13 due to “intensified hostilities,” the organization's head Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media on Tuesday. He appealed for the protection of remaining patients and staff.
The Israeli military declined to comment on military operations around al-Awda.
The dire conditions at the hospitals are part of a pattern that has played out repeatedly across the Gaza Strip throughout the more than seven-month war, with Israeli forces surrounding and raiding hospital after hospital they say are being used by Hamas fighters. Israeli forces have returned to raid some hospitals again after the army said Hamas had a resurgent presence.
Israeli forces besieged al-Awda hospital for nearly two weeks in December before sending troops inside, killing several people and detaining others for questioning, according to Doctors Without Borders. The group's employees were also included.
The hospital's director, Dr. Ahmed Muhanna, was among those detained by Israel and remains missing, according to the non-governmental organization ActionAid, which supports the hospital. Since then, Dr. Salha has been leading the hospital staff in his place.
Dr. Adnan Ahmad Albash, former head of orthopedic surgery at Al Shifa Hospital, was also detained in December in Al Awda, where he worked. Palestinian officials and rights groups announced earlier this month that he had died in Israeli custody.
Salha said no one was allowed to enter or leave al-Awda, and doctors and patients were huddled in rooms and hallways inside to protect themselves from gunfire and artillery shells hitting the exterior walls.
He said those trapped at the hospital included four infants, two of whom were born by Caesarean section on May 18, and two others who were the children of nurses at the hospital. .
Dr Salha said there was about three days' worth of fuel left as of Monday and no clean water. Those trapped inside are “very scared”, he said.
Kamal Adwan, the only major hospital still partially functioning in the north, was attacked several times on Tuesday, according to witnesses, Gaza health officials and the WHO, but the Israeli military immediately responded to requests for comment on the attack. did not respond.
Like Al-Awda, Kamal Adwan was raided by Israeli forces in December and has since become a key facility for treating malnourished children in the north.
Reuters footage showed people being evacuated from the area around the hospital on Tuesday, some wearing white coats and others being carried away on stretchers. The hospital director, Dr. Hassam Abu Safiyah, told the news agency that missiles continued to fly in after the entrance to the emergency department was bombed, preventing medical workers from reaching the victims.
“The situation is catastrophic,” he said.
Ameera Harouda contributed to the report.
