Gov't condemns Israel's burning of north Gaza hospital as 'war crime'

• Lower House calls for 'immediate' action to sue Israel for 'crimes against humanity'
• WHO says Israeli military raid forced Kamal Adwan Hospital out of service

AMMAN — Jordan on Friday condemned the burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza by Israeli forces as a "flagrant violation of international law and humanitarian principles."

 A Foreign Ministry statement described the incident as a "war crime that adds to Israel's ongoing actions in the Strip," holding Israel fully responsible for ensuring the safety of civilians and medical personnel.

Sufian Qudah, the ministry's spokesperson, reiterated Jordan's rejection of the "systematic targeting of medical facilities and personnel." He stressed that such actions violate international law, including the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. 

Qudah also warned of the consequences of the destruction of critical infrastructure necessary for the survival of the residents of northern Gaza.

He also called on the international community, particularly the UN Security Council, to take immediate action to end Israel's aggression against Gaza and the targeting of civilians. He also urged world leaders to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis caused by the ongoing assault, ensure the protection of the Palestinian people, hold those responsible to account and protect essential humanitarian and medical facilities.

Also on Saturday, the Lower House condemned the burning of the hospital in Gaza as a "war crime that underscores decades of suffering inflicted on the Palestinian people."

Highlighting the occupation's long history of killings, destruction, displacement and land confiscation, Lower House Speaker Ahmed Safadi called on Arab and Islamic parliamentary bodies to mobilise efforts and engage with international parliaments to press their governments for decisive action in global forums, particularly the United Nations Security Council.

 He stressed the need to hold Israeli leaders accountable for what he described as a heinous crime against humanity.

Safadi warned that such actions represent a deliberate escalation of the suffering imposed on the Palestinian people.

He called for urgent international intervention and urged the international community to assume its moral and legal responsibility by ending the war on Gaza, ensuring justice for the victims and addressing the humanitarian catastrophe. 

Gaza health officials and the WHO said Saturday that an Israeli military raid has forced a major hospital in northern Gaza out of service and led to the detention of its director.

The military's assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia has rendered the facility "useless", further worsening Gaza's severe health crisis, the Palestinian territory's health officials said.

The World Health Organisation said the operation had put the "last major health facility in north Gaza out of service," AFP reported. 

"Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid," it added in a statement on X.

The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including some on ventilators, reportedly remained in Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Patients in less severe condition 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 had detained Kamal Adwan's director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, along with several medical staff. 

 'Catastrophic' 

AFP was unable to independently verify whether Abu Safiyeh had been detained, but multiple attempts to reach him by telephone were unsuccessful.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Abu Safiyeh was held alongside its north Gaza chief, Ahmed Hassan al-Kahlout.

One of the Gazans evacuated from the hospital, who asked to be identified only as Mohammad for security reasons, told AFP 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," according to AFP.

Ammar Al Barsh, a resident of nearby Jabalia, said the raid on Kamal Adwan and its environs had left dozens of homes in ruins.

"The situation is catastrophic. There is no medical service, no ambulances and no civil defence in the north," Barsh, 50, told 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.

"This raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital comes after escalating restrictions on access for WHO and partners, and repeated attacks on or near the facility since early October," the WHO said.

The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, said that on Tuesday the military had also "reportedly entered the Indonesian Hospital, ordering patients, caregivers and staff to evacuate to Gaza city." 

The same day, "military tanks reportedly attacked the third floor of the eastern wing of the Al Awda Hospital, causing panic", following previous air strikes that damaged the facility, OCHA said.

A separate Israeli strike in central Gaza killed at least nine Palestinians on Saturday, Gaza's civil defence also reported.

Israel's military campaign has killed at least 45,484 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.