JERUSALEM – One of the most startling aspects of Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has been the destruction wreaked on the territory’s health sector. Over the past 13 months, the Israeli military has besieged and raided at least 10 hospitals, saying the attacks are a military necessity because Hamas uses the facilities as command and control bases.
The Associated Press examined the raids late last year on three hospitals in northern Gaza — al-Awda, Indonesian and Kamal Adwan hospitals — interviewing more than three dozen patients, witnesses and medical and humanitarian workers as well as Israeli officials.
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Israel has presented little or even no evidence of a significant Hamas presence at the three. The AP presented a dossier listing the incidents reported by those it interviewed to the Israeli military spokesman’s office. The office said it could not comment on specific events. All three hospitals have come under fire or been raided again in recent weeks.
Today there are no fully functional hospitals in all of Gaza – just 16 out of 39 hospitals are partly operational, according to the World Health Organization, most offering little more than first aid. Israeli attacks in and around medical sites have killed 765 Palestinians and wounded 990 others, WHO says. That number doesn’t include patients who doctors say died for lack of treatment or oxygen during Israeli sieges, whose number is not known.
Here is some of what the AP found:
AL-AWDA HOSPITAL:
—The Israeli military has never made any claims of a Hamas presence at al-Awda Hospital. When asked what intelligence led troops to besiege and raid the hospital last year, the military spokesman’s office did not reply.
—As fighting raged around the hospital, a shell blasted its operating room on Nov. 21, killing three doctors and a relative of a patient, according to international charity Doctors Without Borders.
—After troops surrounded the facility, staff said approaching the hospital could be deadly because of Israeli sniper fire. Three hospital administrators said two pregnant women walking to the facility to give birth were shot on Dec. 12 and bled to death in the street. Medics told of recovering their bodies later.
—Mohammed Salha, an administrator at the time who is now the hospital’s acting director, said that the next day he watched gunfire kill his cousin and her 6-year-old son as she brought the boy for treatment of wounds. Another pregnant woman, Shaza al-Shuraim, described walking to the hospital while in labor, accompanied by her mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Even as they waved white flags, a burst of gunfire killed her mother-in-law.
—The hospital’s director, Ahmed Muhanna, was seized by Israeli troops after they stormed the facility. His whereabouts remain unknown. One of Gaza’s leading doctors, orthopedist Adnan al-Bursh, was also detained during the raid and died in Israeli custody in May.
INDONESIAN HOSPITAL:
—The Indonesian Hospital is the largest hospital north of Gaza City. Before raiding the site, Israel claimed an underground Hamas command-and-control center lay underneath it. It released blurry satellite images of what it said was a tunnel entrance in the yard and a rocket launchpad nearby, outside the hospital compound.
—After its raid late last year, the military did not mention or show any evidence of an underground facility or tunnels. Asked if any tunnels were found, the military spokesman’s office did not reply.
—The military released images of two vehicles found in the compound — a pickup truck with military vests and a bloodstained car belonging to an abducted Israeli, suggesting he had been brought to the hospital on Oct. 7. Hamas has said it brought wounded hostages to hospitals for treatment.
—Despite continued Israeli suggestions that hospitals are linked to Hamas tunnel networks, the military has shown only a single tunnel from all hospitals it raided — one accessing Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
—The Israeli assault in November and December left Indonesian’s top floors charred, its walls pockmarked by shrapnel, its gates strewn with piled-up rubble.
—As Israeli troops surrounded the hospital, shelling hit its second floor on Nov. 20, killing 12 people and wounding dozens, according to staff. Israel said troops responded to “enemy fire” from the hospital but denied using shells.
—During the siege, doctors and medics estimated a fifth of incoming patients died. At least 60 corpses lay in the courtyard. With few supplies, doctors said they performed dozens of amputations on infected limbs that could not be treated.
KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL:
—While Israeli troops surrounded Kamal Adwan in November, at least 10 patients died for lack of water, oxygen and medicine, according to Hossam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician who after the siege became the hospital’s director.
—As they stormed the hospital on Dec 12, troops allowed police dogs to attack staff, patients and others, multiple witnesses said. Ahmed Atbail, a 36-year-old sheltering at the hospital, said he saw a dog bite off one man’s finger. The Israeli military said it was unaware of the incident.
—Witnesses said the troops ordered boys and men from their mid-teens to 60 to line up outside crouched in the cold, blindfolded and nearly naked for hours of interrogation. After releasing some, it opened fire on them as they walked back into the hospital, wounding five, three witnesses said.
—Three witnesses said an Israeli military bulldozer plowed into buildings in the hospital compound and crushed tents that had been sheltering displaced people. Most had evacuated, but Abu Safiya said he found the bodies of four people who had been crushed.
—Asked about the incident, the Israeli military spokesman’s office said bodies were discovered that had been buried previously, unrelated to the military’s activities.
—The military said Hamas used the hospital as a command center but produced no evidence. It said soldiers uncovered weapons but showed footage only of a single pistol.
—The military said it arrested dozens of suspected militants, including the hospital director Dr. Ahmed al-Kahlout. The military released footage of him under interrogation saying he was a Hamas agent and that militants were based in the hospital. His colleagues said he spoke under duress.