Calls to protect Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after new Israel evacuation orders

Yesterday MEMO correspondent, Mohammed Asad, spoke with Ismail Al-Kam, a nurse at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after Israel ordered Palestinians to leave the medical facility even though it is located in a previously marked 'safe zone'. Patients and displaced Palestinians had begun to flee the hospital and its surroundings. 'As medics, we have to continue to work despite the threats, difficulties and struggles. It is our duty towards our people. The [Israeli] occupation must understand this: that doctors are humanitarian workers and they should not be attacked, shot, detained, etc,' Al-Kam tells MEMO.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza yesterday called for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, its patients and health care workers to be protected as Israel ordered the evacuation of the medical facility in Deir Al-Balah. Palestinians began to evacuate the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and areas surrounding it on Sunday, including by removing premature babies from incubators.

Patients and the wounded at the hospital were forced to flee the facility on foot, in wheelchairs, or hospital beds after Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee ordered the “humanitarian area” be vacated. “As a result of the Israeli occupation’s announcement that the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is an operations area, and despite the panic the announcement has caused among patients, leading many of them to flee the hospital, the Ministry of Health confirms the continuation of the hospital’s work,” the ministry said in a statement.

It noted that there are still approximately 100 patients in the hospital, seven of whom are receiving treatment in intensive care.

Patients and the wounded were forced to flee from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah on 26 August 2024 after Israel issued new evacuation orders for the ‘safe zone’ [Mohammed Asad/MEMO]

Maha Al-Sersek, who has been living in tents around the hospital for nine months, said people are shocked by the new evacuation orders and do not know where to go.“Save us, we are tired now,” she cried.

On Sunday, Iyad al-Jabri, the head of the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said in a press conference that the wounded patients in need of medical attention left the hospital out of fear for their lives.

He noted that the hospital administration will continue to provide the necessary medical services to patients and called on international institutions to take action to protect the the only functioning hospital in the region.

READ: HRW calls for probe into Israeli assaults on Gaza healthcare workers

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