Israel forcibly evacuated the Kamal Advan hospital in northern Gaza

Israeli soldiers “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel from the hospital” before starting the operation.

The military did not say where the patients will be transferred. But earlier in the week, an Israeli official said they intended to transfer those at Kamal Advan Hospital to a nearby Indonesian hospital, which was evacuated by the military on Tuesday.

“It’s dangerous because there are patients in the intensive care unit who are in a coma and need ventilators, and moving them would put them at risk,” Dr Sabbah said.

“If the military is going to continue to take these patients out, they’re going to need special vehicles.”

This comes hours after the director of Kamal Advan Hospital said that around 50 people, including five medical workers, had been killed in a series of Israeli airstrikes targeting the area around the hospital.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said in a statement that the building opposite the hospital was targeted by Israeli warplanes, killing a pediatrician and a laboratory assistant, as well as their families.

According to him, the third employee, working as a maintenance worker, was targeted and killed while running to the place of the first strike.

Two of the hospital’s medical staff were 500 m (1,640 ft) away from the hospital when they were targeted and killed in another strike, the statement said, leaving their bodies in the street and no one could reach them.

The Israeli military said on Friday morning that it was “not aware of any strikes on the grounds of the Kamal Advan hospital” and was investigating reports of staff deaths.

The Kemal Advan hospital in Beit Lahia has been under a tightening Israeli blockade of parts of northern Gaza since October, when the military said it had launched an offensive to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.

The UN said the area was “almost under complete siege” as the Israeli army restricted aid delivery to the area, where about 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.

In recent days, hospital administrators have made desperate pleas for protection, as they say the facility is regularly targeted by Israeli fire and explosives.

Oxfam said efforts by aid agencies to deliver supplies to the region since October had been unsuccessful due to “deliberate delays and systematic obstruction” by the Israeli military.