Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza overwhelmed with seriously injured and traumatized patients. Gaza: Hospital patients die due to delays in evacuation Peace and Security
Reports of Israeli troops storming one of the last functioning hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip are deeply concerning, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
“We have lost contact with staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza since reports this morning of an attack,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on social media platform X. “This is deeply worrying given the number of patients being treated and the large number of people sheltering there.”
Northern Gaza is in the midst of an intense military operation, with thousands of civilians cut off from humanitarian aid as food and other supplies dwindle.
Kamal Adwan Hospital is overwhelmed with seriously wounded and traumatized patients, the WHO chief said. Hundreds of displaced people have found temporary shelter in the clinic.
WHO mission in the north of the sector
The Israeli raid came a day after WHO and partners reached Kamal Adwan Hospital amid ongoing fighting in the north of the Strip. The UN team evacuated 23 patients and 26 caregivers south to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
WHO staff delivered 10,000 liters of fuel, blood for transfusions, and trauma and surgical supplies to Kamal Adwan for 1,600 operations. The hospital also received life-sustaining medications for some 5,000 patients.
No Safe Way Out
Children and the disabled are facing increasingly dire conditions in war-torn Gaza, with many dying while waiting to be evacuated, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Friday. He said the darkest phase of the Gaza conflict was now unfolding in the northern part of the strip, where the Israeli military was subjecting the population to massive bombing, siege and the risk of starvation.
“The Israeli military has ordered hundreds of thousands of people to move – with no guarantee of return,” Türk said. “But there is no safe way to leave. Bombs continue to fall, Israeli forces are separating families and detaining people, and those who leave are reportedly being shot at.”
Potential Crimes Against Humanity
Calling on world leaders to act, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said states are obligated under the Geneva Conventions to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.
“The Israeli government’s policies and actual actions in northern Gaza risk clearing the area of all Palestinians,” Turk said. “We are facing what amounts to atrocity crimes, including potentially crimes against humanity.”
Trapped in Bureaucracy
According to the WHO, children are being evacuated from Gaza for medical reasons at a rate of less than one child per day. This was stated to journalists in Geneva by James Elder, a representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“This is not a logistical issue,” he stressed. “We have the capacity to safely remove these children from Gaza. And this is not a capacity issue. Just a few months ago, we were evacuating more children. This is an issue that is being completely ignored [by the Israeli authorities].”
If the current pace continues, it will take more than seven years to evacuate 2,500 children in need of urgent medical care, James Elder warned, adding that the Israeli authorities responsible for humanitarian affairs in the occupied Gaza Strip have not given reasons for the refusals.
“As a result, children in Gaza are dying not only from bombs, bullets and shells, but also because they are not allowed to leave Gaza to receive urgent, life-saving care,” a UNICEF representative said.