Following the storming of Kamal Adwan Hospital by the Israeli army, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Red Cross have expressed extreme concern about health care in the Gaza Strip. “Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have once again become battlefields and the health system is under serious threat,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Monday. According to the Red Cross, the health system in the north of the Palestinian territory has already been “wiped out” by the Gaza war.
The Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip is “out of service after the attack, the forced evacuation of patients and staff and the arrest of its director,” criticized Tedros. The last functioning hospital in the war-ravaged north of the Palestinian territory was run by Abu Safiyeh until the clinic was stormed by the Israeli army on Friday and Saturday. “We demand his immediate release,” wrote WHO chief Tedros, referring to Abu Safijeh, on the online service X.
According to WHO information, the hospital in the city of Beit Lahia was completely evacuated after the attack. Patients and staff were taken to another hospital, but it did not have the necessary equipment to treat them.
Tedros said life-threatening patients from Kamal Adwan Hospital had been transferred to the Indonesian Hospital, which was also “no longer functioning.”
WHO and its partners delivered basic medical supplies, food and water to the Indonesian hospital on Monday. Ten patients whose lives were in danger were transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. However, seven patients and 15 medical staff remain in the “severely damaged” Indonesian hospital.
“We repeat: Stop the attacks on hospitals”said Tedros, addressing Israel. “The people of Gaza need access to medical care. Humanitarian workers must have access to provide medical assistance. “
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Monday in Geneva that ongoing fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army had made hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip absolutely “no longer operational”.
