The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called for the opening of an independent international investigation into information about the Israeli occupation army burying wounded and Palestinian citizens alive in the yard of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza, from which the army forces withdrew after 9 days of siege, storming, and committing horrific atrocities.

The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory - based in Geneva - said in a statement today, Saturday: It received testimonies and complaints from medical and media teams confirming that Israeli bulldozers buried Palestinians alive in the hospital yard before they withdrew from it this morning, and that at least one of the bodies could be seen amid the piles of sand. Citizens confirmed that he was injured before he was buried and killed.

The Observatory confirmed that its teams continue to document what happened in the hospital, including information about killing alive and injured people and burying them in the hospital yard, stressing the need to open an international investigation into the horrific violations that the hospital witnessed, targeting patients, displaced people, and medical staff over the past days, as part of Operation Comprehensive targeting of hospitals and health services in the Gaza Strip since the seventh of last October in the Gaza Strip.

The statement highlighted that after several days of repeated attacks and siege, Israeli army bulldozers this morning carried out bulldozing operations inside the hospital and completely destroyed the southern part of it, before withdrawing from it, leaving massive destruction.

The Observatory indicated that about 9 days ago, Israeli tanks approached the hospital, and Israeli army snipers mounted high buildings and began shooting at anyone moving in the area.

It stated that on Monday, 12/11/2023, Israeli forces directly bombed the hospital’s maternity ward, killing two women and their two children and amputating a third woman’s feet.

It stated that on Tuesday 12/12/2023, Israeli army forces arrested the hospital director, Dr. Ahmed Al-Kahlot, and took more than 70 health personnel out of the hospital to an unknown destination.

It confirmed that Israeli forces stormed several times during these days and turned its roofs and buildings into military barracks, imposing a siege on those inside and depriving them of access to food and water.

An eyewitness, who requested to remain anonymous, was quoted as confirming that the Israeli forces, 48 hours after storming the hospital and placing it under tight siege, asked all males in the hospital from the age of 16 to leave, including the medical staff in the hospital courtyard, then divided them into groups of 5 people and subjected them to photography for verification of their identities.

Later, according to the statement, the Israeli forces worked to evacuate the hospital of those who were in it - 65 injured people, 12 children in intensive care, 6 premature babies, 2,500 displaced people, and 100 medical personnel - in stages, and they forced the males to take off their clothes, 10 meters after they left the hospital. It detained them outdoors in a square for 6 hours before arresting about 50-60 of them, releasing the rest and asking them to go to schools that have shelter centers.

About 50 patients, their families, and 5 doctors and nurses remained inside the hospital. They were detained inside one of the buildings without food, purchases, or electricity.

The Observatory highlighted that during the storming of the hospital, Israeli forces destroyed the external gates, part of the administration building and the pharmacy, burned the medicine store before destroying it, destroyed the water well, the electricity generator, and the oxygen station, and made a large hole in the hospital yard and exhumed about 26 bodies of dead people who had been buried in the place previously. It buried them in cemeteries, where the bulldozer took them out in a humiliating manner that degraded the dignity of the dead.

The Observatory indicated that the Israeli occupation army published a picture of four people leaving the hospital carrying four Kalashnikov weapons, and tried to portray them as if they were militants. However, the Observatory’s initial investigations showed that one of them was a trained doctor, the other a nurse, and the other two were displaced, and that the Israeli forces I forced them to carry the weapons of the police officers guarding the hospital gates.

The Observatory confirmed that it had received testimonies about the death of an elderly person as a result of hunger and thirst inside the hospital, and the death of another after Israeli forces unleashed one of their dogs on him, while a number of children and two patients who were inside the intensive care room died as a result of not receiving appropriate health care.

The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory said: The atrocities committed by the Israeli forces at Kamal Adwan Hospital are an extension of the Israeli army’s repeated attacks on facilities, crews, and medical transports as part of a systematic policy since last October 7, aimed at destroying the health care system in the Gaza Strip, which constitutes a war crime under the rules of international humanitarian law.