At least “twelve patients and their relatives” were killed and “dozens injured” in an Israeli attack on the Indonesian hospital north of Gaza City, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidreh said on Monday. Hamas Health.
• Also read: The largest hospital in the Gaza Strip was evacuated of its residents
• Also read: WHO calls for evacuation of Al-Chifa hospital in Gaza, which has become a “death zone”.
“The Israeli army is besieging the Indonesian hospital and we fear that the same thing will happen there as in al-Chifa,” the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, which was recently evacuated and is now in the hands of the Israeli army, added Dr. Add Qidreh.
“There are around 700 patients and nurses in the Indonesian hospital on the edge of the Jabaliya refugee camp,” he continued. And “health care teams are committed to staying by their patients’ side.”
The Hamas government said dozens of tanks and armored vehicles stationed around the hospital fired machine guns and artillery at the medical facility.
The Israeli army says it is “expanding its operations to new areas of the Gaza Strip,” particularly in the Jabaliya sector.
Hamas continues to reiterate that the Israeli army is waging “a war on hospitals,” while Israel accuses the Islamist movement of using these facilities for military purposes.
On November 5, the Israeli army claimed that an underground Hamas command and control center was located in the Indonesian hospital. The Palestinian Islamist movement has denied this.
The army also provided satellite photos showing a Hamas rocket launch site less than 100 meters from the hospital.
According to the UN, on October 28 and 29, following evacuation orders from the Israeli army, the area around this Indonesian-funded hospital, which opened in 2015, was bombed.
According to the Hamas government, Israeli bombings in this 110-bed capacity hospital had previously left 30 dead, several media outlets quoted its director, Atef al-Kahlot, as saying.
In recent days, Israeli troops also stormed Al-Chifa Hospital in Gaza City. Hundreds of patients, doctors and displaced people who had sought refuge in the hospital were evacuated.
According to the World Health Organization, whose experts visited Al-Chifa, 20 nurses and more than 250 patients were still staying there on Sunday.
The Israeli army is now searching the huge complex for tunnels and weapons. It broadcast images on Sunday evening, purportedly from al-Chifa’s surveillance cameras, that showed hostages being brought into the facility’s premises on October 7, the day of Hamas’s attack on Israel.
She also claimed to have discovered a 55-meter-long tunnel under the hospital, which she said was being used “for terrorism.”
Hamas has for years denied using hospitals for military purposes and responded that images of hostages in al-Shifa proved Hamas had taken them there “to receive treatment.”