The last North Gaza hospital, the governor evacuated after Israeli order

The last hospital providing health services in the governorate of North Gaza is out of service after the Israeli army ordered its immediate evacuation, said the hospital director.

Dr. Mohammed Salha said that patients were evacuated from Jabalia’s Al-Awda Hospital on Thursday evening.

He told the BBC “that we really feel bad about this forced evacuation” after “two weeks of siege”, saying that there is now “no health establishment working in the North”.

Israel has not yet commented, but the BBC has contacted the Israeli defense forces (FDI).

“We are really sad that we have evacuated the hospital, but the Israeli occupation forces threatened to us that if we did not evacuate, they would enter and kill anyone inside,” said Dr. Salha in a vocal note at the BBC.

“Or they would bomb the hospital. We thought of the lives of patients and our staff.”

Dr. Salha told the BBC that the hospital had faced “a lot of bombing and tanks” from noon, local time (9:00 am GMT) on Thursday.

He received a call from Israeli forces around 1:00 p.m. to evacuate and initially refused because there were patients who need health care. He proposed to stay with 10 others of his staff and to evacuate the others, but the army refused, he said.

After seven hours of negotiations, the evacuation occurred around 8:30 p.m. around 8:30 p.m.

The staff transported patients over 300 meters (984 feet) to the ambulances parked from the hospital “because the roads are completely destroyed”.

Two videos sent to the BBC by the staff of the Al-Awda hospital show people, some wearing vests with the name of the hospital on the back, embarkation ambulances and a truck east of the hospital courtyard at sunset, and a convoy of similar vehicles heading south in Jabalia after nightfall.

“Due to impracticable roads”, the hospital’s medical equipment could not be moved, said the World Health Organization (WHO).

The United Nations Humanitarian Agency OCHA said Thursday that “hostilities in progress in the past two weeks have damaged the hospital, disrupted access and created panic, dissuading people from asking for care”.

The patients were evacuated to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Dr. Salha told the BBC that they would provide services through a primary health center in Gaza City and said that another could be established in a refuge.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, general manager of the WHO, said that the closure of Al-Awda meant that there was no functional hospital remaining in the governorate of North Gaza, “cutting a critical lifeline for the people there”.

“Who pleads for the protection and staff of the hospital and patient safety and reiterates his appeal for active protection of civilians and health care,” he said. “Hospitals should never be attacked or militarized.”

The FDI had ordered evacuations of the areas of Al-Aatra, Jabalia al-Balad, Shujaiya, Al-Daraj and Al-Zeitoun on Thursday evening, said spokesman Avichay Adraee at the time on social networks.

“Terrorist organizations are continuing their subversive activity in the region and, therefore, the FDI will extend their offensive activity in the fields where you are present to destroy the capacities of terrorist organizations,” he said.

“From this moment, the areas mentioned will be considered a dangerous fight.”

Al-Awda Hospital was in an evacuation area announced last week, but had still worked, said its director.

A press release from 18 charitable organizations said Thursday that the hospital was under military assistance “for the fourth time since October 2023 and has been struck at least 28 times”.

The emergency room was struck, injuring four employees, and the desalination plant and the storage unit also struck, resulting in the loss of all medicines, supplies and equipment, the charitable organizations said.

The FDI told the BBC last week that it “operated in the region against terrorist targets”, but that it “was not aware of any hospital seat itself”.

In addition to hospitals, some primary health centers still operate in Gaza, with 61 out of 158 partially or fully functional in May 18, OCHA said.

Nine of the 27 health centers from the UN Palestinian refugee agency also worked.

OCHA did not point out how many centers, if applicable, were in the governorate of northern Gaza.

Israel continues its bombing of Gaza, which most Palestinians are unable to leave, after a cease-fire of two months earlier this year.

On Friday, at least 72 people were killed in the last day, the Gaza Ministry of Health announced on Friday.

Israel began to allow limited aid to Gaza last week, after a blockade of almost three months interrupted the delivery of supplies, including food, drugs, fuel and shelter.

Chaos scenes have broken out in the aid distribution centers led by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a group supported by the United States and Israeli.

The UN and many aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF plans, which they think contradict humanitarian principles.

The secretary general of doctors without borders (MSF), Christopher Lockyear, described the plan as “ineffective” and said that the most vulnerable had “practically no chance” to access supplies.

GHF said that he had distributed six food trucks on Friday and planned to build additional sites, especially in northern Gaza, in the coming weeks.

Israel said that it had imposed the blockade on Gaza to put Hamas to release the remaining hostages, at least 20 of which are considered alive. He also accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

An evaluation supported by the UN this month said that 2.1 million people from Gaza were at a “critical risk” in famine. The UN humanitarian leader Tom Fletcher said that the BBC people on the territory were subject to a “forced famine” by Israel.

Israel faces international pressures to allow more help.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday “we will have to harden our collective position” if Israel does not do more “in the coming hours and days”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel retaliated on social networks, claiming “that there are no humanitarian blockade” and accused Macron of continuing a “crusade against the Jewish state”.

Some demonstrators in Israel tried to block Aid trucks for entry into Gaza, with help should not be authorized before Hamas returns hostages and accepts a cease-fire proposed by the United States.

An official of Hamas said that the group “undertook an in -depth and responsible exam” of the proposal, but that it “did not respond” to their requests.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the cross -border attack in Hamas on October 7, 2023, during which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,321 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 4,058 since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, according to the Ministry of Health.

Additional Naomi Scherbel-Bay and Alice Cuddy report in Jerusalem. Verification by Richard Irvine-Brown