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The attack on Kamal Adwan marks the culmination of a three-month campaign of ethnic cleansing and destruction in the northern city of Beit Lahiya.

By Ahmed Ahmed, +972 Magazine

In the morning hours of Dec. 27, Israeli army forces stormed the Kamal Adwan Hospital compound in Beit Lahiya, culminating a nearly week-long siege of the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza.

Soldiers forcibly moved patients out of Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian Hospital further south in the city, which had itself been subjected to an evacuation order by the military several days earlier.

“Surgical departments, laboratory, maintenance, and emergency units have been completely burned, and the fire is now spreading,” a statement released by the hospital staff read, warning that patients are “at risk of dying at any moment.” Hospital Director Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya told Palestinian media that he received a “clear and direct warning” from the army that he would be arrested.

Palestinians return to their destroyed homes after an Israeli military operation east of Deir Al -Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on August 29, 2024.

In a statement, the Israeli army claimed it was operating inside the hospital “following prior intelligence about the presence of militants, terrorist infrastructure, and terrorist activity at the site,” and was “allowing patients and staff at the hospital to evacuate the area in an orderly manner.”

On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike on a building in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan reportedly killed 50 people. Among them were five hospital staffers, according to Dr. Abu Safiya, who spoke with +972 on two occasions this week.

“We need the world to understand that this hospital is being deliberately targeted. The people here are not just patients — they are victims of a systematic attempt to destroy our capacity to save lives,” he told +972 on Dec. 23.

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Militarism and Foreign Policy