‘Global silence and abandonment’ as Gaza’s Kamal Advan Hospital destroyed | Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Everyone woke up to the sound of tanks rumbling in the streets outside the Kamal Advan hospital, which was already out after months of direct Israeli attacks.

Loudspeakers came early Friday morning ordering everyone to evacuate — the sick, the wounded, medical workers and displaced people seeking shelter.

It was clear that the medical complex in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, was about to face an Israeli assault, as many had before it, as Israel systematically destroyed all health services in Gaza.

It didn’t matter that, according to the World Health Organization, the hospital was the last major health facility operating in northern Gaza, which has been suffocatingly besieged and destroyed by Israel in the ongoing war.

Nor was it a refuge for hundreds of Palestinians whose homes were destroyed by Israel and who had nowhere else to go.

Numbers are written on their chests

Around 6:00 a.m., patient Izzat al-Aswad heard Israeli forces calling the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, over loudspeakers.

Dr. Abu Safiyyah returned and told the people in the hospital that they had been ordered to evacuate. Abu Safia, a rare voice exposing what Israel was doing to the hospital, was himself taken by Israel, which refused to release him despite calls from the UN, humanitarian NGOs and international health organizations.

A little later, al-Aswad said, Israeli soldiers demanded that all the men be allowed to strip to their underwear.

Shaking, scared, many injured, the men were ordered to a checkpoint the Israelis had set up about two hours away, al-Aswad said by phone.

At the checkpoint, they gave their full names and their photos were taken.

Then a soldier scratched a number on their chest and neck indicating that they had been searched.

Some of the men were taken away for questioning.

“They beat me and the people around me,” al-Aswad said. “They hit wounded people like me directly on top of our injuries.”

Among the women taken from the hospital was 30-year-old Shorouq al-Rantisi, a nurse in Kamal Adwa’s laboratory department.

The women were told to go to the same checkpoint as the school and then wait for hours in the cold.

“We heard that men were beaten and tortured. It was unbearable.”

Then the search began.

“The soldiers grabbed the women by the head and dragged them towards the search area,” al-Rantisi said. “(They) shouted at us and demanded that we take off our hijabs. They beat those who refused.”

“The first girl who was called to be searched was told to strip. When she refused, the soldier beat her and forced her to lift her clothes.

“One soldier dragged me by my head, then another soldier ordered me to lift my top, then my bottom, and checked my ID,” he said.

Abandoned patients

Al-Rantisi said the women were eventually taken away, stranded at a crossroads and unable to return to Beit Lahiya.

“How could we leave and abandon the sick? “None of us considered leaving until we had to,” he said.

Israel attacked the hospital a few weeks before the raid.

“The hospital and its courtyard were mercilessly bombed day and night, as if it were normal,” al-Aswad said.

“The quadcopters fired at anyone who moved in the courtyard … they targeted generators and water tanks, while medical staff struggled to care for the sick.”

The night before the raid was “terrible”, al-Aswad added, as Israel attacked from all sides, including the al-Safeer compound.

“According to witnesses, there were about 50 people there, including nurses from the hospital. No one could save them or remove their bodies, they are still there,” he said.

Al-Aswad and the men who were not taken in for questioning were released after a full day of abuse and humiliation.

“The soldiers ordered us to go west of Gaza City and never come back,” he said. “We walked through the rubble and rubble, frozen, until people came to meet us near Gaza City, offering us help and blankets.”

“Betrayed” and “Abandoned”

Al-Rantisi said Israel’s crackdown only reinforced the “global silence and abandonment” of Palestinians in Gaza, who have faced more than a year of brutal Israeli attacks that have killed more than 45,000 people.

“More than 60 days of relentless fire – targeted strikes on quadcopters, artillery and generators,” he said.

“Dr. Hussam’s pleas went unanswered until the hospital was attacked and evacuated. How does the world allow this?”

“I feel like we’ve all been betrayed,” Fadi al-Atawneh, 32, said on the phone.

“I was injured, so I stayed in the hospital hoping that the World Health Organization would evacuate or protect us, but that never happened,” al-Atawneh said.

“I am very sad about what happened to us and the fate of Dr. Abu Safiya. We are alone in the face of this aggression.”