MUSCAT/GAZA: The Sultanate of Oman has condemned the Israeli occupation forces' continued aggression against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital, forcing patients and medical staff to evacuate by force.
Oman's Foreign Ministry statement said that such acts show their disregard for all international demands for a ceasefire, protection of civilians and respect for international humanitarian law.
The ministry reiterated the Sultanate of Oman's firm position in achieving just peace and establishing an independent Palestinian state under the provisions of international law.
The Israeli raid forced a major hospital in northern Gaza out of service and led to the detention of its director, the WHO and health officials said on Saturday. The assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital has rendered the facility 'useless', further worsening Gaza's severe health crisis, the Palestinian territory's health officials said.
"This morning's raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service. Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid," the World Health Organisation said overnight on X, referring to the Israeli operation that began in the early hours of Friday.
The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including some on ventilators, reportedly remain in the hospital. Patients in moderate to severe conditions were forced to evacuate to the destroyed, non-functioning Indonesian Hospital, the UN health agency said, adding it was "deeply concerned for their safety." Gaza's health ministry reported that Israeli forces detained Kamal Adwan Hospital's director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, along with several medical staff members. On Thursday, Abu Safiyeh said five staff members of the hospital had been killed in an Israeli strike near the facility. The army had ordered 350 people to leave Kamal Adwan for a nearby school sheltering displaced families. They included 75 patients, their companions and 185 medical staff. Abu El-Rish said soldiers were transferring patients and medical staff to the Indonesian Hospital, which had already been put out of action by heavy damage and had been evacuated by Israeli forces a day earlier. Footage circulating on Palestinian and Arab media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed smoke rising from the area of Kamal Adwan.
One of the Gazans evacuated from the hospital, who asked to be identified only as Mohammad for security reasons, said that some evacuees were interrogated about Hamas. "As we began to exit, the army asked all young men to take off their clothes and walk outside the hospital," said Mohammad, whose brother was a patient there.
"They (soldiers) took tens of young men, as well as physicians and patients, to an unknown place... The young men were interrogated, they were asked about resistance fighters, Hamas and weapons."
Ammar al Barsh, a resident of Jabalia where the military has focused its assault in recent weeks, said the raid on Kamal Adwan and its environs had left dozens of homes in the area in ruins. "The situation is catastrophic, there is no medical service, no ambulances and no civil defence in the north," Barsh, 50, said in a statement to AFP.
The army "continues to raid the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding houses and we hear gunfire from Israeli drones and artillery shelling," he added. — Agencies
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