Second-largest hospital in Gaza says it warned it couldn’t evacuate before Israeli airstrike
Gaza’s second-largest hospital said it was told by Israel on Sunday to clear its building ahead of an airstrike targeting it even though the facility has repeatedly warned evacuating would be impossible.
After Israel’s warning, videos were uploaded on social media showing the apparent aftermath of airstrikes in Tal Al Hawa, where the Al Quds Hospital is located, with smoke clouds visible just a few blocks away from the site.
Israeli Defense Forces rep Maj. Nir Dinar told CNN the hospital was given repeated warnings to evacuate.
“They received much more than two [warnings] for the last three weeks,” Dinar said.
Hospital officials said they received two calls Sunday to empty their building, as the IDF had planned a series of airstrikes on it and in the area to kill Hamas terrorists, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which runs the facility.
The cowardly terror group has been known to hide in buildings filled with innocent civilians, such as hospitals and schools, so that Israel won’t attack them.
“Two phone calls were received, with a clear and direct threat, that the hospital must be evacuated at once, otherwise PRCS holds full responsibility for the lives of everyone inside the hospital,” the organization said.
Raed Al Nems, head of media for the PRCS, said similar warnings came ahead of several airstrikes in Tal Al Hawa but that these were the first threatening a direct hit on the hospital.
“In the past days, they used to say we needed to evacuate because they will be targeting the area,” he told The New York Times. “This time it was clear that they wanted to target us.”
The hospital has repeatedly warned that it is not feasible to evacuate its building, as it is treating hundreds of patients and serving as a shelter for about 12,000 displaced civilians.
The hospital has said it also has many patients in intensive care and children in incubators who cannot be moved so easily.
The PRCS has called on Israel and humanitarian groups operating in Gaza to support the hospital and call for the IDF to avoid any more airstrikes in the area.
“We call once again on the international community as a whole, The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the UN system and the International agencies to act immediately and save Al Quds Hospital, as well as all hospitals in Gaza from being targeted, and to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe from unfolding,” the hospital said in a statement.
Along with fear of the airstrikes, the PRCS has said the situation at the hospital is growing more desperate as it runs out of fuel and medical supplies, with some ambulances inoperable because of the lack of gas, the Times reports.
The situation has grown so severe that the United Nations World Food Programme revealed Sunday that aid supplies were looted in Gaza during “growing hunger and desperation.”
