Israeli army forces have placed an explosives-laden box near the gate of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, a video showed yesterday.
The footage shared by the hospital’s director Hussam Abu Safiya showed an Israeli vehicle deploying a wooden box bearing a hazardous symbol (a triangle with an exclamation mark) outside one of the hospital’s gates.
“Israeli occupation vehicles, using robotic devices, are placing explosives boxes at the gates of the hospital,” Abu Safiya said in a Facebook post.
He added that Israeli forces had recently detonated residential buildings near the hospital using similar explosive devices.
Abu Safiya warned yesterday that the medical facility was facing daily Israeli bombardment, which he said was part of a “deliberate campaign of killing and forced displacement.”
Beit Lahia’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the last medical facilities in the increasingly desolate northeastern area of the Gaza Strip, has been under brutal attack by the Israeli military for the last 24 hours, according to Abu Safiya.
He said the occupation appears determined to kill everyone inside the hospital.
“Our lives are in grave danger,” he said. “We are taking cover in the corridors with the patients. There are around 80 injured individuals and patients, and we cannot provide them with treatment amid all this shelling.”
In the past hours, Abu Safiya said, the hospital has faced an all-out assault involving intensified shelling, gunfire from nearby snipers directed at the facility and the deployment of explosive-laden robots around it.
Anyone spotted within the hospital is being targeted, he continued, adding that despite Israeli orders for them to leave the facility, there is no safe way for anyone to leave, as any attempt to exit guarantees death.
“Occupation forces ordered us to evacuate the hospital,” he said, “but they are not allowing us to leave, as they target anyone trying to exit. It’s clear they are determined to kill everyone left inside.
Around 80 patients are at the risk of death at this moment.”
Journalist Muhammad Sharif, who is present in the area, shared an image showing an individual on the ground outside the hospital gates who he said had been killed by Israeli forces, noting that no one had been able to retrieve the body due to the danger from ongoing fire.
Abu Safiya described patients and medical staff avoiding windows that are being targeted continuously. Explosive-loaded robots have been deployed and detonated around the hospital, he said, destroying several departments and scattering debris and shrapnel into the corridors to which patients and staff have withdrawn for cover.
“The shelling is unprecedentedly intense,” he said, “and has been ongoing since dawn on Saturday.”
The strikes started suddenly and without prior warning, Abu Safiya added, with the initial strikes targeting the intensive care and neonatal departments.
He said that the hospital has also run out of supplies, and that neither staff nor the patients have eaten for days as Israeli forces have imposed a siege on the area, blocking any aid from reaching the hospital. If the shelling and gunfire don’t kill them, he said, they will die from hunger and thirst.
“We are dying before the eyes of the world, and no-one is intervening to stop this brutal assault,” he said.
“We hold the international community responsible for what is happening to us. Doctors and patients are dying every day while the world remains silent and does nothing.”
“For more than 70 days, we have been calling for help,” he added, “but no-one has responded. We are dying.”
Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry director general Mounir Al Barsh told Mada Masr that the ministry’s appeals to the World Health Organisation and UNRWA have gone unanswered.
“It is unacceptable for the world to stand silent while witnessing a massacre inside a hospital,” Barsh said.
Barsh added that “this is deliberate killing. For patients, leaving the hospital now means certain death.”
The Israeli military launched sweeping operations in northern Gaza in October, killing thousands and expelling tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in the northeast.
Israeli occupation forces committed five massacres against families in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, resulting in the killing of at least 58 Palestinians and the injury of 86 others, according to medical reports.
The Palestinian death toll from the Israeli onslaught since October 7, 2023 has risen to 45,317 reported fatalities, with an additional 107,713 individuals sustaining injuries, the majority of the victims are women and children, medical sources said.
According to the same sources, emergency services are still unable to reach many casualties and dead bodies trapped under the rubble or scattered on roads across the war-torn enclave, as Israeli occupation forces continue to obstruct the movement of ambulance and civil defence crews.
Gaps between Israel and Hamas over a possible Gaza ceasefire have narrowed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials’ remarks yesterday, though crucial differences have yet to be resolved.
A fresh bid by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the US to end the fighting and release Israeli and foreign hostages has gained momentum this month, though no breakthrough has yet been reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday said progress had been made in hostage negotiations with Hamas in Gaza but that he did not know how much longer it would take to see the results.
During a speech in Israel’s Knesset, Netanyahu said Israel had made “great achievements” militarily on several fronts and that military pressure on Hamas had led its leaders to soften their previous demands.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks said while some sticking points had been resolved, the identity of some of the Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel in return for hostages had yet to be agreed, along with the precise deployment of Israeli troops in Gaza.
His remarks corresponded with comments by the Israeli diaspora minister, Amichai Chikli, who said both issues were still being negotiated. Nonetheless, he said, the sides were far closer to reaching agreement than they have been for months.
“This ceasefire can last six months or it can last 10 years, it depends on the dynamics that will form on the ground,” Chikli told Israel’s Kan radio. Much hinged on what powers would be running and rehabilitating Gaza once fighting stopped, he said.
The duration of the ceasefire has been a fundamental sticking point throughout several rounds of failed negotiations. Hamas wants an end to the war, while Israel wants an end to Hamas’ rule of Gaza first.
“The issue of ending the war completely hasn’t yet been resolved,” said the Palestinian official.
Israeli minister Zeev Elkin, a member of Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Israel’s Army Radio that the aim was to find an agreed framework that would resolve that difference during a second stage of the ceasefire deal.
Chikli said the first stage would be a humanitarian phase that will last 42 days and include a hostage release.
The Israeli military yesterday published evacuation orders to residents of several districts in the Shejaia neighbourhood of Gaza City, citing rocket firing from the area.
Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate northern Gaza to create a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
Israel says its operation around the three communities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip – Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia – is targeting Hamas militants.
United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher yesterday said Israeli forces had hampered efforts to deliver much-needed aid in northern Gaza.
“North Gaza has been under a near-total siege for more than two months, raising the spectre of famine,” he said. “South Gaza is extremely overcrowded, creating horrific living conditions and even greater humanitarian needs as winter sets in.”
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