A delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross visits the Al-Amal Hospital in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis late last week, as it is under attack by Israel forces. Photo courtesy of the Palestine Red Crescent Society/X
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said southern Gaza’s Al-Amal Hospital has been shuttered following weeks of being under siege by Israeli forces.
The Palestinian organization said in a statement Tuesday that the medical facility in Khan Yunis has been “taken out of service and has stopped working completely after occupation forces forced the hospital’s crews and the wounded to evacuate it and closed its entrances with dirt barriers.” Advertisement
In the sternly worded statement, the PRCS accused Israel of targeting the medical facility and the international community of failing to provide its staff, patients and displaced Palestinians who sought shelter there protection.
“The hospital was besieged for more than 40 days and shelled several times before the occupation forces resumed its siege again and forced everyone in it to leave, leaving the hospital destroyed,” it said. Advertisement
Israel has been waging war against the Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, and has accused the militia of using the hospital and others in the Palestinian enclave as “terror hubs.”
Its defense forces said earlier this week that more than 20 “terrorists” had been eliminated in aerial and close-quarters combat at the medical facility, and weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades and explosives, were found.
“Eliminated terrorists, carried out targeted raids on terrorist infrastructure and located large amounts of ammunition and weapons,” it said Tuesday morning.
The PRCS said Sunday that Israel troops had surrounded the medical facility with vehicles, launched smoke bombs to force occupants to evacuate and demanded through drones “that all those present in the hospital leave it naked.”
Amid the evacuation, PRCS members came under fire, it said.
The siege of the hospital resulted in at least two dead, including 23-year-old Amir Abu Aisha, a member of the hospital’s emergency operations room team, and a patient being treated at the facility. At least three other people were injured.
Yesterday, PRCS bid farewell to colleague Ameer Abu Aysha, 23 years old, who was killed the day before yesterday due to being targeted by the Israeli occupation forces while performing his humanitarian duty at Al-Amal Hospital. He was laid to rest in his hometown in Deir al-Balah… pic.twitter.com/avdRFUPGHC— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) March 26, 2024
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Twenty-seven people, including staff, as well as six patients and one companion were evacuated from the hospital along with the two bodies, it said.
PRCS staff and wounded patients had been trapped in ambulances outside Al-Amal Hospital for 20 hours, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement, citing the Palestinian organization.
The IDF said it had “facilitated the exit” of hundreds of Gazans from the area and questioned dozens of suspects.
As Al-Amal was being shuttered, Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza continued to be under attack for more than a week, despite the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calling Monday for an “immediate end to the siege and appealed for safe access to ensure that patients get the care they need.”
The IDF said it has apprehended some 500 people it said were affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the hospital.
The targeting of buildings designated as civilian hospitals in conflict zones is forbidden by the Geneva Convention.
Israel has repeatedly been accused of attacking medical facilities hundreds of times.
Earlier this month the New York-based International Rescue Committee said only 12 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were partially functional. Advertisement
