CNN
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Four doctors were killed at Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza on Friday, after Israeli forces stormed the compound, killing and injuring dozens of people in surrounding areas, eyewitnesses told CNN.
Israeli troops also forced health care workers and patients to leave the facility, and destroyed critical medical supplies, according to a statement by Dr Hussam Abu Saifya, the hospital director.
In the early hours of Friday, the Israeli military sent two plain clothed messengers into the hospital, who told people over a megaphone to evacuate, Abu Saifya added. The military detained a “large number” of young men in the two-hour raid, including health workers and Palestinians who had sought refuge, added Abu Saifya.
Israeli quadcopters unleashed a blaze of “intense and direct fire” as military vehicles encircled the facility, Abu Saifya recalled, before corralling patients, displaced people and health workers in the courtyard and forcibly taking them to a checkpoint further south, towards Gaza City.
“Initially, there was a series of airstrikes on the northern and western sides of the hospital, accompanied by intense and direct fire,” Abu Saifya said in a statement on Friday. “They approached me and ordered me to evacuate all patients, displaced persons, and medical staff, gathering everyone in the hospital’s courtyard and forcibly taking them to the checkpoint.”
Members of an Indonesian medical delegation – the only team performing surgery at Kamal Adwan – were among those forced to leave and not allowed to return, according to Abu Saifya.
The attack on Friday was the second such raid by the Israeli military since forces sprung a renewed incursion on three cities in northern Gaza on October 5, razing entire streets, spawning severe hunger and leaving emergency crews unable to rescue people wounded by the onslaught.
More than 3,700 Palestinians have been killed there, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO). Another 10,000 people have been injured, the GMO said on Monday.
Hours later, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from one of the last remaining functioning facilities in northern Gaza. Hospital staffers and patients left the facility to find hundreds of bodies and wounded people lining surrounding streets, Abu Saifya added.
A photo posted by Abu Saifya on social media showed at least 17 shrouded bodies laying on the hospital courtyard. Another 20 people were left injured and “in need of urgent care,” he said. The Israeli military severely damaged oxygen generators overnight, Abu Saifya told CNN, saying there are now just two “inexperienced” surgeons available to administer life-saving care at the hospital.
At least 30 people were killed by Israeli bombing on houses around Kamal Adwan overnight, according to Dr Munir Al Bursh, the director general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
On Thursday, an Israeli drone struck and killed a 16-year-old boy in a separate attack as he was entering the hospital’s X-ray department in a wheelchair, Abu Saifya told CNN.
CNN has reached out to the Israeli military for comment on Abu Saifya’s allegations.
At least 1,050 health workers have been killed since Israel launched its war in Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, according to the Ministry of Health in Ramallah. The Israeli military launched a renewed incursion on three cities in northern Gaza on October 5, saying it is targeting Hamas’ renewed presence in the area.