Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical centers, on Friday. Gaza Strip, set fire to large sections and ordered dozens of patients and hundreds of others to leave, officials said.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli strikes killed at least 25 people, including 15 in a single house in Gaza City, medics and the Civil Emergency Service said.
Gaza's health ministry said staff inside the hospital in Beit Lahia, which has been under intense pressure from Israeli forces for weeks, had been cut off.
“The occupying forces are currently inside the hospital and they are burning it,” the ministry's director, Munir Albarish, said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it had tried to limit civilian casualties and “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel prior to the operation”, but gave no details.
In a statement, it said fighters from the Hamas group, which previously controlled the Gaza Strip, had operated from the hospital throughout the conflict.
Hamas-appointed deputy health minister Yusuf Abu al-Reish said Israeli forces set fire to the surgical department and laboratory and a warehouse.
like Indonesian and Al Auda Hospital, Kamal Advan Medical staff in Gaza say that Israeli forces have been attacking the northern edge of the Gaza Strip for several weeks.
Hundreds of people were ordered to leave the hospital
Brush said the military ordered 350 people to leave Kamal Adwan, a nearby school that is sheltering displaced families. They included 75 patients, their companions and 185 medical staff.
Abu al-Reish said the soldiers were transporting patients and medical staff to an Indonesian hospital, which had already been out of action due to heavy damage and had been evacuated by Israeli forces a day earlier.
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Footage circulating on Arab media, which Reuters could not immediately confirm, showed smoke billowing from the area of Kamal Adwan.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanun, and Beit Lahia has been cleared of people and systematically demolished, fueling speculation that Israel is taking the area as its own. Intends to pass. Closed buffer zone After the fighting in Gaza ended.
Israel denies this, saying its campaign is aimed at preventing Hamas militants from regrouping.
Five medical staff, including a pediatrician, were killed by Israeli fire in Kamal Adwan, health officials said on Thursday. The Israeli army said it was unaware of the attack on the hospital and that the doctors' death reports would be reviewed.
In a statement, Hamas blamed Israel and the United States for the fate of the hospital residents.
Israel's campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The conflict began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages to Gaza.