According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Indonesian hospitals in northern Gaza are currently not treating patients or the injured.
The ministry noted that there are three public hospitals in the northern Gaza governorate: Kamal Adwan Hospital, Beit Hanun Hospital and Indonesian Hospital, all of which were closed due to Israeli attacks.
On Friday, Israeli soldiers surrounded an Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahiya, where many Palestinian refugees have taken refuge.
Beit Rahiya’s Kamal Adwan Hospital was evacuated of patients and staff and was heavily torched by Israeli forces last week. The hospital’s director, Hassam Abu Safia, was also arrested by Israeli forces during a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Rahiya last week.
On Saturday, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X that the organization had “not received any updates on the safety and health” of 51-year-old Abu Safia.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir El Bala in central Gaza, said another evacuation order had been issued for Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia.
Healthcare in the Gaza Strip has been brought to the brink of collapse by repeated attacks by Israeli forces, including the destruction of Kamal Adwan Hospital last week. Indonesia Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital have been damaged by repeated Israeli attacks since October 2023.
Mahmoud said many of the people receiving treatment at the two hospitals and seeking shelter were from the destroyed Kamal Adwan Hospital.
“We’re talking about people who are in very high danger,” he said. “They have to be connected to medical equipment, and some people have been seriously injured.”
Images from an Indonesian hospital show children among the seriously injured patients.
Mahmoud also reported that Israeli authorities are blocking “any kind of coordination” between hospital staff and independent humanitarian organizations such as the Red Crescent Society.
Israel defends attacks on medical facilities by claiming they are being used by Palestinian militants, but the United Nations frequently questions the veracity of that claim.
On Friday, Daniel Mellon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, posted on social media a letter to the United Nations and the World Health Organization, stating that the attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital a week ago was prompted by “irrefutable evidence that Palestinians were armed.” ‘ A group was using the hospital.
He said the Israeli military had taken “extraordinary measures to protect civilian lives, while acting on reliable information.”
“Systematic targeting of Gaza’s health system”
Following Israel’s targeting of medical facilities in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting on Friday, where U.N. officials appealed for hospitals to be protected.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told the meeting that Israel has not been able to substantiate many of its claims that its facilities were used by fighters in the Gaza Strip, adding that the claims are “often vague and wide-ranging” and that in some cases “It seems contradictory,” he said. Based on publicly available information. ”
The Turkish president has called for an independent investigation into all Israeli attacks on medical facilities and health workers in the Gaza Strip and the alleged misuse of such facilities.
WHO’s Rick Pieperkorn called on Israel to immediately cancel the evacuation order for Indonesian Hospital and Al Awda Hospital.
“They are struggling to stay open. Food, water and fuel are rapidly running out,” he told a Security Council meeting, adding that Israel’s past 85 He added that hospitals are currently lacking many essential medicines.
Pieperkorn said the WHO was deeply concerned about the fate of Dr. Hassam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was arrested by Israel last week.
“We have not been able to contact him since then and are calling for his immediate release,” Pieperkorn said.
Denmark’s UN Ambassador Christina Markus Lassen noted that the WHO had warned of “systematic targeting of Gaza’s health system” and urged the “pattern” to be “reversed”. .
According to a recent report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Israeli military has carried out more than 136 air raids on some 27 hospitals and 12 medical facilities in the past eight months.
Israel’s attack on Gaza continues
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continue to bombard areas in Gaza, leaving at least 41 people dead across Gaza since early Saturday, including 27 in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s civil defense force. There is.
On Saturday, an Israeli air raid on a house in northern Gaza City killed 11 members of a family, including seven children.
“The house where several of the displaced people lived was completely destroyed,” civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said.
“There are still several people under the rubble in the two-story building,” he added, adding that Israeli drones “also opened fire on emergency workers” who were trying to treat the injured.
Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud also reported that at least five people were killed early Saturday in an Israeli drone attack on a convoy of security guards hired to protect commercial and humanitarian truck deliveries.
Civil defense officials also reported that a husband, wife, and son were killed in an Israeli attack on a house on Al-Sahaba Street in Gaza City.
According to Al Jazeera Arabic newspaper, Israeli warplanes bombed a tent housing displaced Palestinians near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Bala, central Gaza, injuring several people.
Separately on Saturday, the Israeli military said it had confirmed rockets fired toward Israel from northern Gaza.
The military said the rockets fell near the Beit Hanoun crossing, known to Israelis as Erez, one of several crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
At least 45,658 Palestinians have been killed and 108,583 injured in Israel’s war in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Hamas-led attacks on the same day left at least 1,139 people dead in Israel and about 250 taken prisoner.
