Israel pounded Gaza overnight with deadly attacks targeting displaced people in two camps and a school, as it ordered the forced evacuation of one of the last hospitals barely operating in the enclave’s besieged north.
The military launched a wave of attacks on the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi in the south, setting refugee tents ablaze in a drone attack that killed seven people, with further strikes on a civilian car and a vehicle carrying security personnel killing four others.
In separate attacks, the military targeted a school housing displaced people in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, quadcopters and armoured vehicles firing at the building early on Monday, killing one person.
The military also killed four people in an area north of the camp, according to Al Jazeera Arabic and Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The raids capped a bloody 24 hours in the Strip, with medical sources telling Al Jazeera Arabic that a total of 50 people had been killed since early Sunday.
As the attacks continued, the military ordered the closure and forced evacuation of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, endangering about 400 civilians, including babies in incubators.
The hospital is one of the few still functioning in the north, where thousands of people have been trapped under a punishing siege for nearly three months.
Wafa reported on Sunday that Israeli forces had been targeting the hospital with bombs, artillery shells and sniper fire, specifically striking the women’s, maternity, and neonatal wards, killing three civilians.
The head of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safia, told news agency Reuters that the military was directly targeting fuel tanks, which could potentially “cause a large explosion and mass casualties of the civilians inside”.
Obeying the order to shut down was “next to impossible” because there were not enough ambulances to get patients out, he said.
Palestinian armed group Hamas said the military’s attacks on Kamal Adwan and threats to forcefully remove patients, the injured and displaced people, were “a crime of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement”.
Attacks on ‘safe’ places
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said: “We are in a situation right now where a marked evacuation zone is not safe for displaced people, not the evacuation zone in al-Mawasi, not schools, not shelters, not even hospitals.”
“We are seeing repeated attacks on these particular designated areas for the past month,” he said. “What we’re seeing right now is highlighting the vulnerability of really … traumatised, displaced civilians in these areas.”
Charity Oxfam said on Sunday that Israeli authorities have allowed only 12 aid trucks into northern Gaza in the past two and a half months.
“Deliberate delays and systematic obstructions” by the military meant that only 12 of the “meagre” 34 trucks allowed to enter the zone had been able to distribute aid to starving Palestinians.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, said on Sunday that there had been an “escalation” in Israel’s war on Gaza over the past 24 hours.
In a post on X, he reiterated his calls for a ceasefire, saying “the world must not become numb”.
#Gaza
Escalation over the past 24 hours.
More civilians are reported killed and injured.Attacks on schools and hospitals have been commonplace.
The world must not become numb.All wars have rules
All of those rules have been broken.A ceasefire is long overdue
A…— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) December 22, 2024
