Gaza hospital in rubble after Israeli withdrawal

Gaza City – In what was once the courtyard of the Kamal Adwan hospital in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya, Palestinians wade through the rubble, searching for corpses.

The sound of one of them sobbing breaks out while he wraps a body to prepare for burial.

Mahmud Assaf, 50, came to the hospital from Jabalia with a cart to recover two of his relatives’ children who had been patients at the facility for 10 days.

“I found Hadi paralysed… lying on his back under the chairs. Everything was on top of him,” he said, speaking about one of the children who appeared barely conscious and severely burned.

The Hamas-run health ministry reported on December 12 that the Israeli army stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza City during a “siege” that lasted several days.

On Saturday, Israel’s army said it “completed its activity in the area of the Kamal Adwan hospital”, which it charged “had been used by Hamas as a command and control centre”.

The army said it had found weapons and arrested around 80 Hamas members at the facility — the last functioning government hospital in northern Gaza.

Assaf said he wanted to take away the children quickly now that the army had withdrawn, but was shocked by the “massive, indescribable destruction” he found at the hospital.

“Patients are everywhere. There is nothing left fit for life,” he said.

“(The children have) cases of serious burns without having received anything to eat, drink, or treatment,” he added.

The army said it had “questioned hospital workers” who had “confessed that weapons were hidden in incubators… that were supposed to be used to treat premature babies”.

Hamas accused Israel of carrying out a “horrific massacre” at the hospital, claiming Israeli forces “fired at patient rooms”, arrested staff, and destroyed tents of displaced people with bulldozers.

The courtyard in Kamal Adwan is full of the clearly visible tracks of Israeli tanks and bulldozers.

All health infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has been hard hit by aerial bombardments and ground operations carried out by the Israeli army in retaliation for the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli territory.

The attack killed 1,139 people, mostly civilians, with Hamas militants taking about 250 hostages, of whom 105 have been released and several killed, according to the latest Israeli figures.

Vowing to eliminate Hamas, Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment of Gaza, alongside a ground invasion, that has killed more than 18,800 people, mostly women and children, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry.

– ‘Let them kill us all’ –

Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals — which have special status under the laws of war — to hide weapons and command centres, charges which the group denies.

The World Health Organisation said in a statement Sunday that it is “gravely concerned at the unfolding situation at Kamal Adwan Hospital and is gathering information urgently”.

Outside the courtyard, Abu Mohammed, who came to look for his son, stood crying.

“They demolished the building. They killed the doctors. Even the doctors were not spared. They left nothing behind,” he said.

“My son is here. I don’t know how I will find him,” Abu Mohammed said, pointing to the rubble.

“Where are the Arab countries? Where is Sisi?” referring to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of neighbouring Egypt, a key mediator between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“We’re fed up. They (Israelis) have been killing us since 1948 (the year of Israel’s founding)… Let them kill us all so that we can rest instead of this torture.”