On Friday, Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern tip of Gaza, ordering the evacuation of dozens of patients and hundreds of other people and leaving part of the hospital ablaze, Health Ministry officials said.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli attacks killed at least 25 people, including 15 in one house in Gaza City, doctors and civilian emergency services said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said it had lost contact with staff at the hospital in Beit Lahiya, which has been under intense pressure from Israeli forces for weeks.
“The occupation forces are now in the hospital and burning it,” ministry director Munir Al-Bursh said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it tried to limit damage to civilians and “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel ahead of the operation,” but gave no details.
The statement said that militants from Hamas, which previously controlled the Gaza Strip, have operated from the hospital throughout the current war and made it a key stronghold.
Youssef Abu El-Rish, a Hamas-appointed deputy health minister, said Israeli forces set fire to a surgical ward, a laboratory and a warehouse.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said there was a small fire in an empty hospital building that was under surveillance. “Regarding the claims that the fire was caused by IDF gunfire, the IDF is not currently aware of any such incident,” it said.
Like hospitals in Indonesia and Al-Awda, Kamal Adwan has been repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces, which have been pounding the northern end of the Gaza Strip for weeks, Palestinian medical personnel say.
Hundreds were ordered to leave hospital in northern Gaza
Bursh, the ministry's director, said the army ordered 350 people to leave Kamal Adwan and go to a nearby school where displaced families were sheltering. Among them were 75 patients, their accompanying persons and 185 medical staff.
Abu El-Rish said soldiers were transporting patients and medical staff to an Indonesian hospital that had already been put out of action due to heavy damage and evacuated by Israeli forces a day earlier.
Footage circulating in Palestinian and Arab media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed smoke rising from the Kamal Adwan neighborhood.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya was cleared of people and razed to the ground, fueling speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza ends.
Israel says its campaign is aimed at preventing Hamas fighters from regrouping, but that it will retain full control over Gaza security after the war.
On Thursday, health officials said five medical workers, including a pediatrician, were killed by Israeli shelling in Kamal Adwan. The Israeli military said it was not aware of the hospital strike and that the report into the doctors' deaths would be investigated.
In a statement, Hamas blamed Israel and the United States for the fate of the hospital residents.
According to health officials in the enclave, more than 45,300 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Most of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced and much of the Gaza Strip is in ruins.
The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which, according to Israeli data, approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken to Gaza as hostages.