Nidal al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie

CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of only three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, on Friday, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to evacuate the compound, officials said.

In separate incidents across Gaza, Israeli strikes have killed at least 25 people, medics said. One of the strikes on a house in Gaza City killed 15 people, medics and civil emergency services said.

The Palestinian health ministry said contact with staff inside the facility, which has been under heavy pressure from Israeli forces for weeks, had been lost.

“The occupation forces are inside the hospital now and they are burning it,” Munir Al-Bursh, director of the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it was making efforts to mitigate civilian casualties and “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel prior to the operation” but did not provide details.

“Kamal Adwan Hospital served as a terrorist stronghold for Hamas in northern Gaza, where terrorists operated throughout the war,” it said in a statement.

Kamal Adwan, as well as the Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals, have been repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces, which have been shelling the northern edge of the Gaza Strip for weeks, Palestinian medical staff said.

Friday’s attack comes a day after the army evacuated the nearby Indonesian Hospital and continued to pressurize Al-Awda Hospital.

Bursh said the army ordered the 350 people inside the facility to leave for a nearby school that sheltered the bereaved families. They included 75 patients, their companions, and 185 medical staff.

Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Television said that hours after the raid, Israeli forces set fire to the hospital. Footage circulating in Palestinian and Arab media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed smoke rising from the hospital premises.

The Israeli military had no comment.

Much of the area around the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya has been depopulated and systematically destroyed, fueling speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza. .

Israel denied the claims saying its campaign was to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.

On Thursday, health officials said five medical staff, including a pediatrician, were killed by Israeli fire at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, where Israeli forces have been operating since October.

In a statement, Hamas held Israel and the United States responsible for the fate of patients, wounded people and medical staff inside the hospital.

Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced and large parts of Gaza have been destroyed.

The war was triggered by a Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.