Israel is forcing two hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate under threat of attack as its ethnic cleansing campaign continues.
Israeli forces have surrounded the Indonesian Hospital, where many staff and patients sought shelter after nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was destroyed in an Israeli raid last week, reports Al Jazeera.
Late on Friday, a forced order to evacuate was also issued for the al-Awda Hospital, where 100 people are believed to be sheltering.
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The evacuation order came as New Zealand Palestine solidarity protesters followed a silent vigil outside Auckland Hospital yesterday with a rally in downtown Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square today, where doctors and other professional health staff called for support for Gaza’s besieged health facilities and protection for medical workers.
When one New Zealand medical professional recalled the first time that the Israel military bombed and destroyed al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza in November 2023, the world was “ready to accept the the lies that Israel told then”.
“Of course, they wouldn’t bomb a hospital, who would bomb a hospital? That’s a horrible war crime, if must have been Hamas that bombed themselves.
“And the world let Israel get away with it. That’s the time that we knew if the world let Israel get away with it once, they would repeat it again and again and we would allow a dangerous precedent to be set where health care workers and health care centres would become targets over and over again.
“In the past year it is exactly what we have seen,” he said to cries of shame.
“We have seen not only the targeting of health care infrastructure, but the targeting of healthcare workers.
“The murdering of healthcare workers, of aid workers all across Gaza at the hands of Israel — openly without any word of opposition from our government, without a word of opposition from any global government about these war crimes and genocidal actions until today.”
In an impassioned speech about the devastating price that Gazans were paying for the Israeli war, New Zealand Palestinian doctor and Gaza survivor Dr Abdallah Gouda vowed that his people would keep their dream for an independent state of Palestine and “we will never leave Gaza”.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for an investigation into the Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals and medical workers.
Volker Türk told the UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East that Israeli claims of Hamas launching attacks from hospitals in Gaza were often “vague” and sometimes “contradicted by publicly available information”.
Palestine urges UN to end Gaza genocide, ‘Israeli impunity’
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, said: “It is our collective responsibility to bring this hell to an end. It is our collective responsibility to bring this genocide to an end.”
The UNSC meeting on the Middle East came following last week’s raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the arbitrary arrest and detention of its director, Hussam Abu Safia.
“You have an obligation to save lives”, Mansour told the council.
“Palestinian doctors and medical personnel took that mission to heart at the peril of their lives. They did not abandon the victims.
“Do not abandon them. End Israeli impunity. End the genocide. End this aggression immediately and unconditionally, now.”
Palestinian doctors and medical personnel were fighting to save human lives and losing their own while hospitals are under attack, he added.
“They are fighting a battle they cannot win, and yet they are unwilling to surrender and to betray the oath they took,” he said.
Norway is the latest country to condemn the attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and medical workers.
On X, the country’s Foreign Ministry said that “urgent action” was needed to restore north Gaza’s hospitals, which were continuously subjected to Israeli attack.
Without naming Israel, the ministry said that “health workers, patients and hospitals are not lawful targets”.
Urgent action is needed to restore North Gaza’s hospitals and uphold international humanitarian law.
Protecting healthcare saves lives.
We share WHOs concern at #UNSCHealth workers, patients, and hospitals are not lawful targets. https://t.co/VWswcGhCex
— Norway MFA (@NorwayMFA) January 3, 2025
Israel ‘deprives 40,000’ of healthcare in northern Gaza
The Israeli military is systematically destroying hospitals in northern Gaza, the Gaza Government Media Office said.
In a statement, it said: “The Israeli occupation continues its heinous crimes and arbitrary aggression against hospitals and medical teams in northern Gaza, reflecting a dangerous and deliberate escalation.”
These acts, it added, were being carried out amid “unjustified silence of the international community and the UN Security Council”, violating international humanitarian law and human rights conventions.
The statement highlighted the destruction of Kamal Adwan Hospital, where its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safia, was arrested and reportedly subjected to physical and psychological abuse.
The GMO described these acts as “full-fledged war crimes”.
According to a recent report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Israeli military had conducted more than 136 air raids on at least 27 hospitals and 12 medical facilities across Gaza in the past eight months.
The GMO report demanded an independent international investigation into these violations and accountability for Israel in international courts.
Amnesty International criticises detention of Kamal Adwan doctor
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of the human rights watchdog Amnesty International, said Israel’s detention of Dr Hussam Abu Safia underscored a pattern of “genocidal intent and genocidal acts” by Israel in Gaza.
“Dr Abu Safia’s unlawful detention is emblematic of the broader attacks on the healthcare sector in Gaza and Israel’s attempts to annihilate it,” Callamard said in a social media post.
“None of the medical staff abducted by Israeli forces since November 2023 from Gaza during raids on hospitals and clinics has been charged or put before a trial; those released after enduring unimaginable torture were never charged and did not stand trial.
“Those still detained remain held without charges or trial under inhumane conditions and at risk of torture,” she added.
