How Israel destroyed Kamal Adwan Hospital and sexually abused doctors, patients it abducted

Kamal Adwan Hospital was north Gaza's last functioning hospital before the Israelis destroyed it in yet another act of unabashed terrorism.

As expected, the largest and the last functioning hospital in north Gaza was finally destroyed completely by the Israeli barbarians on Friday.

As I have documented in these pages, Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, north Gaza, was besieged for nearly three months by the Israelis, who reduced the hospital’s surroundings from all sides to rubble with relentless bombardments over several weeks. They also kept dropping bombs from quadcopters over various departments of the hospital, shot indiscriminately at people entering or leaving the hospital, set its various parts on fire, and cut vital oxygen and fuel supplies that ran its generators.

After months-long campaign to send it the way of Al-Shifa Hospital — which was rendered, in the words of a WHO spokesperson, unable “to function in any way, shape or form” by the time the Israelis were done with it in April — the Zionist troops set Kamal Adwan Hospital on fire after evacuating it of its doctors and patients, some of whom were still attached to their medical devices and in no position to move on their own. Through the course of the near three-month siege of the hospital dozens of patients and doctors were killed by the Israelis; hundreds more were left injured.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza released a string of alarming updates on Friday afternoon, apprising the world of the barbarism being unleashed on the hospital by the Zionist troops in the hope of saving it:

🚨 After the occupation forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital and cut off communication with the hospital director, the fate of the health staff and patients is unknown.

🚨 The occupation celebrates the end of a year of genocide by destroying Kamal Adwan Hospital.

🚨 The occupation evacuated some patients at gunpoint to the Indonesian hospital that the occupation destroyed a few days ago is a crime and a continuation of the occupation’s disregard for the system of values that govern the world.

🚨 Occupation forces force medical staff, patients and companions to undress in the extreme cold and take them outside the hospital to an unknown destination.

But just like the ministry’s dozens of pleas in the past, no one came to the hospital’s rescue. Doctors, paramedics, patients, and their relatives — numbering over 400 in total — were forced out of the hospital at gunpoint by the Israelis and taken to an unknown location.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan — who remained steadfast through months-long Israeli savagery that consumed his own son, Ibrahim, and continued to care for his patients as Zionist bombs went off left, right, and centre — was among those kidnapped by the Israelis.

In one of its updates from December 27, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that there was a direct threat of arrest against Dr. Hussam, “Dr Hussam Abu-Safiya received a clear and direct threat: ‘This time we will arrest you.’”

His whereabouts remain unknown. (When the Israelis destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital, they had arrested its director Muhammad Abu Salmiya, and released him after seven months of incarceration during which he was abused and tortured.)

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya leads the funeral prayer for his son Ibrahim.

Those taken away by the Israelis endured torture and abuse. Here’s an eyewitness testimony of the events that transpired before Kamal Adwan’s complete destruction:

Here’s another testimony of a patient abducted from the hospital:

Sharouq Saleh al-Rantisi, a paramedic at the hospital, revealed that while the demonic Israelis prepared to decimate the hospital, they didn’t refrain from indulging in their favourite activity: sexual abuse. Al-Rantisi said that the Jewish supremacists “made us take our tops off and pull down our pants.”

Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released a report on December 28 in which it reported “deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area” at the hands of the Israelis.

The report goes on to reveal harrowing accounts of sexual assault against nurses, patients, and their companions:

Israeli soldiers forced women and girls to remove their clothing under threats, insults, and offensive slurs targeting their honour. Several women and girls also reported being sexually harassed.

One of the women expelled from the area told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “A soldier forced a nurse to take off her trousers, then placed his hand on her. When she tried to resist, he struck her hard across the face, causing her nose to bleed.”

Another woman reported that a soldier told a woman in their group: "Take it off, or we’ll force it off you."

In another incident, a woman refused to remove her headscarf, prompting a soldier to tear her clothes, exposing her chest. One victim recounted being dragged by a soldier who forced her to press against him, saying, “Take it off now,” while hurling obscene remarks at her.

Similarly, a hospital staff member told the Euro-Med Monitor team: “The soldiers ordered us to remove our hijabs, but we refused. They then turned to the girls under 20 years old and demanded they remove their hijabs, but they also refused. The soldiers decided to punish us by taking two women at a time and forcing them to lift their clothes and lower their trousers under threats and coercion.”

Kamal Adwan’s destruction is latest in the relentless Israeli assault on Gaza’s medical infrastructure as the Zionist occupation attempts to make the besieged enclave unfit for human habitation. The Israelis have destroyed every single one of Gaza’s 30 plus hospitals, some of them multiple times. Palestinians with their resourcefulness and resilience have restored some of the hospitals to whatever level they could. But most of the facilities are barely functioning, if at all. Due to the crippling siege imposed by the Israelis and targeted attacks on doctors and other medical staff, the hospitals lack the resources to treat the flood of patients that Israeli bombardments are creating daily.

In a missive issued by the Palestinian Health Ministry on the fateful Friday, it gave an account of the various wings of Kamal Adwan that were attacked as the occupation troops forced the staff and patients of the hospital to move to another medical facility that was already destroyed by the Israelis.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is suffering from a suffocating siege, as the operations, surgery, laboratory, maintenance, ambulance units and warehouses have been completely burnt down, and the fire is now spreading to all buildings.

The occupation army is forcibly transferring the sick and injured at gunpoint to the Indonesian hospital, which lacks medical supplies, water, medicines, and even electricity and generators.

Patients are threatened with death at any moment due to the harsh conditions.

Numerous occupation army vehicles are surrounding the hospital, making the situation extremely dangerous.

The statement added that the Israeli operations against Kamal Adwan is a “knockout blow” and fits with the grotesque “general’s plan” — an Israeli plan propounded by the Israeli ghoul Giora Eiland — which calls for levelling all civilian infrastructure in northern Gaza after labelling it military target and enforcing a complete siege of the territory to ultimately make way for Jewish settlements with no place for the native Palestinians:

It is worth mentioning that three public hospitals used to cover medical services in the northern Gaza Strip: Beit Hanoun Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital, and Kamal Adwan Hospital. Beit Hanoun Hospital was completely destroyed, and the Indonesian Hospital was completely out of service after all infrastructure was destroyed.

The only hospital that was partially functioning due to the lack of medical supplies is Kamal Adwan Hospital.

What is happening today is the occupation’s knockout blow to the remaining health system in northern Gaza, and this fits perfectly with the generals’ plan to end the presence of the population in the northern Gaza Strip.

Since the beginning of the genocide on October 7, 2023, the Palestinian Health Ministry has made numerous appeals to international organisations to come to the rescue of Gaza’s medical infrastructure, but its ceaseless appeals have never amounted to anything.

Undaunted, it made more appeals as Kamal Adwan’s destruction at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces was underway:

Excerpts from a Palestinian Health Ministry press conference on December 27:

• We call on international organisations to find an alternative to ensure the continued provision of health services in the northern Gaza Strip.

• We call on the international community to stop the grave Israeli violations against patients and health facilities.

• Al-Awda Hospital has been directly targeted by the occupation for 80 days.

• We do not know anything about the fate of the patients and medical staff inside Kamal al-Adwan Hospital.

• International organisations are aware of what is happening in northern Gaza, especially in hospitals.

• We are facing a huge deficit in the clinical capacity of hospitals in Gaza governorate.

The fresh set of appeals also fell on deaf ears as the so-called “international organisations” probably busy in preparations for the New Year galas with multi-course meals and endless bottles of champagne at some of the fanciest hotels in existence.

The attack on hospitals in Gaza has been so normalised during the course of this genocide that all such appeals seem to disappear down a blackhole. At this point, one can only marvel at Gaza’s medical administrators who still continue to appeal to “international organisations” to come to their rescue and ease the catastrophic situation their people are condemned to brave on their own.

Western media couldn’t be bothered about the fate of the Palestinians, who continue to be killed by the hundreds every single day with weapons supplied by the Western governments and dropped on the heads of innocent civilians by Israeli terrorists as they accelerate their extermination campaign.

As Israeli designs on Kamal Adwan entered its end game, the hospital and its vicinity resembled scenes straight out of a dystopian nightmare. The Israeli terrorists deployed robots to place explosive-laden boxes in front of the hospital. The bombs would be remotely detonated.

Quadcopter drones were also put to service. These flying death machines would drop explosive payloads on the hospital premise and cause fatal damage to the patients and hospital staff.

On December 24, Dr. Hussam gave an update on the destructive capacity of the explosives dropped by the robot vehicles and the death machines hovering overhead:

Yesterday, for the first time, robots advanced close to the hospital, posing a great danger. They were very close and unloaded explosive boxes.

As a result, after they exploded, all the barriers inside the hospital were destroyed, and the internal doors were destroyed.

The destruction was horrific, and twenty people were injured in the hospital wards, including five members of the medical staff.

Since this morning, the drones have returned, this time larger and carrying boxes of explosives. Each box weighs more than twenty kilograms, and they are currently being dropped on the houses surrounding the hospital. These boxes are causing explosions followed by fires in the targeted areas. Anyone who moves in the hospital yard is at risk, as the drones dropping the bombs are targeting anyone who moves.

If this were a Hollywood script, it would be rejected out of hand for being too far beyond the realm of possibility — surely, no audience would believe such sadistic behaviour? Yet, this has played out in real life as the Palestinians have screamed for help day and night for months without avail.

Back in November 2023, the Israeli terrorists turned the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Gaza’s only cancer treatment facility, into a military base. Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi has obtained footage showing the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza is also being turned into a military base. Kamal Adwan will probably also go the same way as the entirety of northern Gaza is being flattened save for some structures that serve as Israeli military checkpoints and bases.

The Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza also being turned into a military base. Photo: Younis Tirawi

In one of its last appeals the Palestinian Health Ministry made a damning statement, “History will record in the pages of shame all those who have any action to stop this genocide and did not move a finger.”

In a world that has seen Jewish exceptionalism play out in all its coarse and uncouth nakedness, the Israelis couldn’t care less about how history views their barbarism. The shame, indeed, will be on us for seeing it all unfold right in front of our eyes but failing to prevent it. We have seen over 300,000 Palestinians devoured by the Zionist death machine. Children are freezing to death due to a lack of food, clothing, and shelter. Hospitals are being burned down in broad daylight while doctors are stripped naked, abducted to unknown locations, and abused sexually. How will we live with such shame?

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