Dozens of Palestinians including at least five medical workers were killed Thursday by an Israeli airstrike targeting a building opposite the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, according to health officials in the embattled coastal enclave, who also said yet another baby froze to death there.
Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hussam Abu Safia told reporters that "nearly 50" people were killed in the strike, including Dr. Ahmed Samour, a pediatrician; laboratory technician Israa Abu Zaida; maintenance technician Fares Al-Hudali; and paramedics Abdul Majeed Abu Al-Aish and Maher Al-Ajrami, whose "bodies remain in the street where no one can reach them."
"It is another dark day in the ongoing series of crimes against Kamal Adwan Hospital and its staff," Abu Safia said.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops have been besieging and attacking Kamal Adwan since October as part of what one leading Israeli scholar called a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" meant to clear northern Gaza of Palestinians and establish an at least semi-permanent Israeli presence there, with an eye on possible future re-colonization and annexation.
An IDF officer recently toldHaaretz that one commander, Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, seeks to personally execute the so-called Generals' Plan—a blueprint for the starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from northern Gaza—by besieging and expelling 250,000 Palestinians from the area.
Kamal Adwan staff have defiantly remained at work even as the IDF steps up its attacks on the facility with artillery, drones, bullets, and remote-controlled bombs.
"Yesterday we went through a difficult night that no one can imagine. At dawn, there was violent and direct targeting of the intensive care unit," Dr. Muhammad Barid toldMondoweiss from inside the ICU at the hospital on Tuesday. "Shells fell and set fires inside the department. The department is crowded with cases because the intensive care unit in Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only department operating in the northern Gaza Strip."
Mondoweiss also interviewed Abu Safia, who vowed that "we will leave when the last Palestinian leaves the northern Gaza Strip."
"We will stay and serve those who are here," he added. "This is a humanitarian mission, and our message to the world is that we deliver humanitarian care and should not be obstructed. We committed ourselves to providing for those in need, and we will fulfill our oath as doctors here at Kamal Adwan Hospital."
Thursday's strike came amid reports of a fourth Palestinian infant death within the past 72 hours due to cold temperatures and lack of adequate shelter.
Since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded at least 153,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with more than 11,000 others missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble, according to local and international officials. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced—many of them multiple times—and hundreds of thousands more have been starved or sickened due to the war and Israel's "complete siege."
Israel's conduct in the 447-day war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
