9 October 2024
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) is deeply alarmed by the Israeli military’s forced displacement orders in northern Gaza that includes orders to evacuate critically ill patients and healthcare workers from Al Awda, Indonesian and Kamal Adwan hospitals.
Hospitals, clinics, and humanitarian workers remain under siege as medical facilities in northern Gaza run out of fuel, medical supplies, and safe passage, leaving more than 300 critically ill patients trapped.
The Kamal Adwan Hospital has been forced to shut down most of its services as the Israeli military expands its invasion of the north, but the steadfast medical teams in the emergency department are still receiving and treating people injured in attacks. Newborn babies from the MAP-supported neonatal intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan have been evacuated to the Patient Friends Hospital in Gaza City – which MAP is also supporting – but ambulances are being detained at military checkpoints.
Fikr Shalltoot, MAP’s Gaza Director, said: “A year in to Israel’s military assault on Gaza and Israeli forces are once again forcing hospitals to shut down. These are full of displaced civilians, medical staff, and sick patients, all of whom are protected under international law. We are deeply concerned for the safety of patients at the hospital, and the staff that have stayed to take care of them in impossible circumstances.”
Rohan Talbot, MAP’s Director of Advocacy and Campaigns said: “The Israeli military's actions in northern Gaza are systematically collapsing the little of what remains of the health system and eliminating the conditions needed to maintain Palestinian survival. Even if people are forced to flee, there is nowhere safe in Gaza for people to go.”
“Nine months after the International Court of Justice ordered measures to prevent potential genocide in Gaza, the catastrophic failure of the international community to take action to enforce a ceasefire has enabled Israel to ramp up its deadly assault. The world must act before Gaza is erased entirely.”
Israeli forces have already forced over 70,000 people to flee their homes in northern Gaza, cutting off the area and subjecting it to intense bombardment, while evacuation routes are blocked or unsafe.
Israel’s ongoing siege is isolating northern Gaza from the rest of the region, and obstructing humanitarian assistance. A MAP colleague who has been displaced from his home in the north in recent days fears he will ever be allowed return to his home.
84% of Gaza is now under forced displacement orders, a tactic which the Israeli military is now mirroring in Lebanon with a quarter of Lebanese territory now under displacement orders.
Immediate intervention is urgently needed to prevent the erasure of the Palestinian presence in northern Gaza. MAP calls on the UK Government to take urgent action to stop Israel’s forcible displacement of Palestinians from the north and ensure that civilians, including those who choose to stay in their homes, are protected at all times.
The UK must demand the urgent protection of health facilities, healthcare workers and patients in northern Gaza’s hospitals. The UK must also immediately end all arms transfers to Israel, and enforce Israel’s compliance with the International Court of Justice’s orders to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Email your MP now to demand that the UK Government acts urgently to uphold international law, and immediately halt ALL arms sales to Israel.
Photo: Newborn babies who have been evacuated from the Kamal Adwan Hospital to the Patient Friends Hospital in Gaza City.
