Palestinian doctor: Israel detonated explosive-laden robots, destroyed hospital facilities

Israeli occupation forces have detonated explosive-laden robots near the Kamal Adwan hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, causing serious damage to its facilities and wounding a nurse in the head, hospital Director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said yesterday.

“Unfortunately, last night [Wednesday/Thursday] was worse than the night before. The explosive robots were very close to the hospital, and much larger this time,” he said, adding that shrapnel has penetrated the hospital building and hit one of the patients’ rooms, which resulted in a direct head injury to nurse Hassan Al-Dabous.

“The hospital lacks the resources to adequately deal with such serious cases. We are making efforts to transfer patients to other hospitals, and I hope that [injured nurse] Hassan will be transferred to Al-Ahli Al-Madani Hospital [in Gaza City] for surgery and care,” he added.

He pointed out that “the hospital is still under threat from drones, as one of the medical staff was injured by shrapnel from an explosive dropped by a drone, resulting in a neck injury.”

Abu Safiya explained that the latest explosion, which occurred at around 4:30am (02:30 GMT), destroyed most of the hospital’s facilities, including doors, windows and internal barriers, leaving the intensive care unit almost out of service.

He said that “medical supplies are being transferred from other areas of the hospital to treat the injured carefully due to the ongoing shelling.”

According to Dr Abu Safiya “there are currently about 75 injured, in addition to their companions, and 180 medical personnel, bringing the total number of people in the hospital to about 350.”

He pointed out that “the hospital suffers from a severe shortage of medical and food supplies, and faces difficulty in receiving medical delegations.”

It has been reported this morning that all communication with the hospital staff has now been cut off as occupation forces encircled the medical centre and forced everyone inside, including patients to vacate it.

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