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full screen People check damage at the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza after an attack on December 6. Photo: AFP/TT
The Israeli attacks near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza on Thursday means that the last major hospital in the war-torn area has been put out of service, warns the World Health Organization, WHO.
“Initial reports indicate that some important departments were severely burned and destroyed during the raid,” WHO writes in a post on X.
Israel’s military claims the attack was aimed at Hamas militia near the hospital. In a statement, it is said, among other things, that the hospital is being used as a “hideout for terrorists”.
Terror-labeled Hamas, for its part, accuses Israeli forces of storming the hospital and forcing staff and patients to evacuate.
According to information to the WHO, around 60 people from the healthcare staff and 25 patients in a critical condition are still in the hospital. All other patients have been forced to evacuate to the destroyed and non-functioning Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza.
“WHO is deeply concerned about their safety,” the organization writes and repeats its demand for a ceasefire.
The attack is the latest in a series of attacks targeting or carried out near Kamal Adwan Hospital since early October, according to the WHO.
“Such hostilities and raids undermine all our efforts and support to keep the facility minimally operational. The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of medical care,” writes the WHO on X.