Gaza City:
In what was once the courtyard of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya, Palestinians wade through the rubble, searching for bodies.
The sound of one of them sobbing is heard as he wraps a body in preparation for burial.
Mahmud Assaf, 50, came to the hospital from Jabalia by cart to pick up two children of his relatives, who had been patients at the facility for 10 days.
“I found Hadi paralyzed… lying on his back under the chairs. Everything was on top of him,” he said, speaking of one of the children who appeared barely conscious and was badly burned.
The Hamas-led Health Ministry reported on December 12 that the Israeli army had forcibly entered the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City in a “siege” that lasted several days.
On Saturday, the Israeli army said it had “completed its activities in the area of the Kamal Adwan Hospital,” which it accused of being “used by Hamas as a command and control center.”
The army said it had found weapons and arrested about 80 Hamas members at the facility – the last functioning government hospital in northern Gaza.
Assaf said he wanted to quickly remove the children now that the army had withdrawn, but was shocked by the “enormous, indescribable destruction” he found at the hospital.
“Patients are everywhere. There is nothing more suitable for life,” he said.
“(The children have) cases of severe burns without being given anything to eat, drink or treatment,” he added.
The military said it had “interrogated hospital staff” who “confessed that weapons were hidden in incubators… said to be used to treat premature babies.”
Hamas accused Israel of carrying out a “horrific massacre” at the hospital, claiming that Israeli forces “fired into patient rooms”, arrested staff and destroyed tents of displaced people with bulldozers.
The courtyard in Kamal Adwan is full of clearly visible traces of Israeli tanks and bulldozers.
All health infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has been severely affected by aerial bombardments and ground operations carried out by the Israeli army in retaliation for Hamas' unprecedented October 7 attack on Israeli territory.
The attack killed 1,139 people, mostly civilians, with Hamas militants taking about 250 hostages, 105 of whom were released and several killed, according to the latest Israeli figures.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and has carried out a brutal bombardment of Gaza as well as a ground invasion, killing more than 18,800 people, mostly women and children, according to the Palestinian territory's health ministry.
'Let them kill us all'
Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals – which have special status under the laws of war – to hide weapons and command centers, charges the group denies.
The World Health Organization said in a statement on Sunday that it is “deeply concerned about the developing situation at Kamal Adwan Hospital and is urgently gathering information.”
Outside the courtyard, Abu Mohammed, who had come to look for his son, stood weeping.
“They demolished the building. They killed the doctors. Even the doctors were not spared. They left nothing behind,” he said.
'My son is here. I don't know how I will find him,” Abu Mohammed said, pointing to the rubble.
“Where are the Arab countries? Where is Sisi?” referring to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of neighboring Egypt, a key mediator between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
“We are fed up. They (Israelis) have been killing us since 1948 (the year of Israel's founding). Let them kill us all so we can rest instead of this torture.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)