Attacks on Gaza's health sector make hospitals a 'battleground', WHO chief warns
The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that Gaza's health sector is under increasing threat amid ongoing Israeli attacks and raids on hospitals.
Ghebreyesus described hospitals in the enclave as "battlegrounds" in a post on X, formerly Twitter, noting that the Israeli incursion on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has rendered it out of service.
The hospital was stormed by Israeli troops on Friday, following nearly three months of a suffocating blockade and constant air strikes on its departments and the area surrounding them.
All remaining medical staff, patients, and their relatives were taken out of the hospital at gunpoint, forced to strip down to their underwear and transferred to an unknown location.
The Palestinian health ministry said dozens of doctors were taken to detention centres for interrogation, including the director of the hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya.
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Ghebreyesus called for the "immediate release" of Safiya, who was violently beaten by Israeli forces before his arrest, Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, told Al Jazeera.
International rights group Amnesty International has made corresponding calls for the release of Safiya, urging Israel to "immediately release all Palestinians arbitrarily detained, including health workers".
"Hospitals and health workers are not targets. The international community, especially Israel's allies, must act to bring an end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza #EndGazaGenocide," Amnesty said in a post on X.
Over the past three months, Safiya, a paediatrician, has published dozens of videos and sent out pleas to the international community to act against the Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Deliberate targeting of the health sector
He repeatedly warned that the lives of patients and medical staff were in danger amid constant Israeli bombings and a siege preventing the entry of aid and food.
"Instead of receiving aid, we receive tanks… which are shelling the [hospital] building," said Abu Safiya in a video two months ago.
Following the storming of Kamal Adwan Hospital, patients in critical condition were forced to move to the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, which ceased operations weeks ago due to ongoing Israeli attacks.
The Gaza health ministry reported that four out of the ten patients transferred from the Indonesian Hospital to al-Shifa Hospital, coordinated by WHO, were arrested. The remaining patients and medical staff in the Indonesian Hospital face "dire conditions," the ministry added.
The Al-Ahli Hospital and Al-Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital in Gaza City were also shelled by Israeli troops and damaged as a result, according to Ghebreyesus.
"We repeat: stop attacks on hospitals. People in Gaza need access to health care. Humanitarians need access to provide health aid. Ceasefire!" the WHO chief added.
The Israeli military has been accused of deliberately destroying Gaza's health system through constant targeted attacks on hospitals, ambulances and doctors since the 7 October Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
Israeli forces previously raided the Strip's two largest hospitals, the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and Naser Hospital in Khan Younis, destroying them in the process.
They have also killed more than 1,150 health workers and detained 300 since the war on Gaza began, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
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