The last functioning intensive care unit at a hospital in northern Gaza was severely damaged by Israeli shelling this week, according to medical staff at the facility who have been pleading for a respite from violence to bring in essential supplies.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, which includes the intensive care unit, in the city of Jabaliya, said on Thursday that it had been hit by an Israeli tank shell that caused a fire and inflicted serious damage. The unit was the only intensive care facility still providing services for both children and adults in northern Gaza, he said.
The Israeli military said it was “not aware of any strike or shooting toward the I.C.U. in Kamal Adwan Hospital,” and was looking into whether there had been fighting nearby, according to The Associated Press. Israel has in the past accused the armed Palestinian group Hamas of using the hospital as a base of operations, something that hospital staff and Gaza health officials have denied.
“We urgently need repairs related to water and oxygen supplies, but we have not received anything so far,” Dr. Abu Safiya said in a statement. “We appeal to the international community to open a humanitarian corridor and allow the entry of medical supplies, equipment and ambulances so that we can provide safe medical services.”
Kamal Adwan Hospital has been caught in the middle of an Israeli military offensive against Hamas in northern Gaza that has been raging all around the compound for more than two months.
“We have been addressing the world for over 75 days, and yet nothing is being done,” Dr. Abu Safiya said in an earlier statement, issued on Wednesday. “Yesterday was one of the darkest, most difficult and bloodiest days at Kamal Adwan Hospital,” he added. “The tank shells hit the intensive care unit, igniting a fire that forced us to evacuate the patients quickly.”
He said the isolation ward was completely burned in the fire.
Israel says the aim of its offensive is to destroy a regrouped Hamas presence in the area. The fighting, focused on Jabaliya and on two other areas of northern Gaza, has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 100,000 residents, according to the United Nations.
Throughout the offensive, Kamal Adwan, one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, has been inundated with casualties.
A World Health Organization crew visited the hospital this week and delivered fuel, food and medicine “amid hostilities and explosions,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said on Monday in a social media post.
“The conditions in the hospital are simply appalling,” he said. “Hostilities around the hospital continue and recent attacks have further damaged the oxygen supply,” generators and other parts of the building.
Israeli airstrikes this week hit eight buildings in the vicinity of the hospital compound and killed a number of people in those buildings, Dr. Abu Safiya said.
Israel has raided Kamal Adwan before and attacked areas in the vicinity of the hospital. In October, the military detained or expelled most of the hospital’s staff members during a raid that lasted for days.
Hashem Abu Wardeh, a nurse at Kamal Adwan, described working in near-impossible conditions to treat large numbers of wounded people with limited medical supplies and amid continuous shelling and gunfire that made it impossible to move around the hospital grounds safely.
Speaking in a telephone interview on Monday, he said that few doctors and nurses remained at the hospital and that they were often caring for more than 100 patients at a time. Displaced families are also taking shelter at the facility.
But the worst part of the Israeli attacks was the constant damage to gas, water and electricity lines that supply the hospital, he said.
“The situation is very difficult and a lot of people are in pain, including children,” Mr. Abu Wardeh added. “We can’t bear it. We just want mercy.”
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