Israel ordered the closure and evacuation on Sunday of one of the last hospitals still partly functioning in a besieged area on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, forcing medics to search for a way to bring hundreds of patients and staff to safety.
The head of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, Husam Abu Safiya, told Reuters via text message that obeying the order to shut down was “next to impossible” because there were not enough ambulances to get patients out.
“We currently have nearly 400 civilians inside the hospital, including babies in the neonatal unit, whose lives depend on oxygen and incubators. We cannot evacuate these patients safely without assistance, equipment, and time,” said Abu Safiya.
“We are sending this message under heavy bombardment and direct targeting of the fuel tanks, which if hit will cause a large explosion and mass casualties of the civilians inside,” he said.
Reminder that attacking hospitals and people in hospitals is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
Apparently not if it’s territory you illegally occupy or a neighboring country that one time sent terrorists to your country. Then the whole country is terrorists and everything is a military target. Helps if some of your citizens steal the “abandoned” land and build on it after you destroy everything.