The Zionist army’s war against the people of the Gaza strip is the first war in the history of mankind to be named “a war against hospitals”. All one has to do is look at the list of targeted military attacks on health buildings and staff from 7/10/23 to 25/3/24                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    It is a well-known fact health is a priority for people. They will always try to find solutions to health problems facing them or their children or relatives. When they can’t find a solution in their home land they are forced to start thinking of other ways to overcome the issues. This is what the Zionist government’s army wants, to plant the idea of voluntary emigration in the minds of the Palestinian residents of Gaza who until now they have failed to forcibly displace as they did in the Nakba of 1948 when 800,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their cities and their villages and go to neighboring countries or other parts of Palestine.

The Zionist army wants to succeed in the displacement of patients, wounded and health workers in Gaza’s health network. We want to stop them. We want to contribute as ordinary people as well as social movements, spaces and collectives away from the hands of governments and their contractors whose only aims are the enslavement and submission of the people and their resistance movements. We wish to send the message that the people who actively protested in demonstrations want to turn their solidarity into actions.

On 7/12/2023 the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Human Rights gave a press release mentioning that at least 364 attacks on healthcare services have been recorded since 7th October 2023 resulting in 553 deaths of health workers, damage to 50 healthcare facilities and 190 ambulances.

Weeks earlier and more specifically on 22/11/2023 the World Health Organization (WHO) had documented 178 attacks on healthcare services in Gaza resulting in 533 deaths and 696 victims including 22 deaths of healthcare workers and 48 injured while working. The attacked closed 44 health facilities including 24 hospitals which were damaged 40 ambulances were affected of which 32 were damaged.

By 31/01/2024 up to 1.7 million people (over 75% of the population of the Gaza strip) have been displaced sometimes repeatedly. Families have been forced to move repeatedly searching for safety. After intense Israeli bombing and battles at Khan Younis over recent days a large number of displaced people have moved south. According to the OCHA on 29 January the Israeli army ordered several neighborhoods to evacuate to the south. This area consisted of around 59 shelters with approximately 88.000 displaced people being forcibly displaced again.

Why did we choose this specific hospital?

Because the Al Awda hospital is supported by social committees who have been providing social and health care for decades now to the most densely populated Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza strip Jabalya. The Al Awda hospital began operating on 27/04/1997. Since then on the one hand it has nurtured and cared for tens of thousands of patients and wounded especially women and children and its maternity ward is considered to be unique not only in Northern Gaza but in the whole region while on the other hand it has been frequently attacked by the occupation army which was still in Gaza until 2005 (the army of the Zionist government left Gaza in 2005). It has also suffered many attacks during the five wars that have been conducted over the last 17 years. This specific hospital is the only one in the area which has a maternity unit and wards that offer maternity care. During the ongoing war 2023-2024 the Jabalya camp which is in the same location as the hospital has been bombed with the most powerful bombs available to the occupation army flattening whole blocks. Over 60% of the houses in the camp have been completely destroyed along with the water and sewage system, the electricity system and most of the roads. Overall, the Zionist army has caused the destruction of over 50% of homes in the Gaza strip, the infrastructure and facilities which existed in the Northern part of Gaza where the hospital Al Awda is located. The destruction according to the Financial Times comes close to 80% of all facilities and homes.

Because Al Awda hospital is one of the 26 health institutions that has been bombed and attacked with all the weapons available to the Zionist army. These attacks have caused hundreds of deaths among healthcare workers and immeasurable damage to the hospitals, their facilities and mechanical and sanitary equipment making them non-operational. Al Awda hospital has suffered 6 attacks by the air force and the artillery of the Zionist occupiers. 

10/11/2023 The entrance was hit as well as ambulances and cars belonging to doctors and nursing staff causing huge destruction.

21/11/2023 a targeted attacked was carried out on the third and fourth floor of the hospital where three doctors on duty were murdered two of whom were working on the Médecins Sans Frontières ward Dr Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr Ahmad Al Sahar, and the third Dr Ziad Al-Tatari was working in the hospital as a pediatrician.

1/12/2023 at the end of the first ceasefire, during which a prisoner exchange took place, Médecins Sans Frontières reported an attack on the hospital.

The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health issued a statement condemning "the targeted attack by the Israeli occupation army on the office of the director of Al Awda Hospital, Dr. Ahmed Muhanna". 

13/12/2023 the invading army laid siege to the hospital, trapping 240 people, patients and health workers inside. The snipers of the invaders, who were stationed in the surrounding buildings, murdered a pregnant Palestinian woman in the hospital. The hospital director said that a nurse was killed by an Israeli sniper on the fourth floor of the hospital while she was working.

19/12/2023, the Zionist occupation forces, who had turned the Al Awda hospital in northern Gaza into a military barracks, arrested hundreds of people who were in the hospital including 80 medical staff, 40 patients and 120 displaced persons who had taken refuge inside the hospital without water, food or medicine and prevented movement between sections. Among those arrested is the hospital director, Ahmed Muhanna, who is still being held by the occupying forces.

31/1/2024 the hospital was bombed by the artillery of the invaders.

Since the latest attack, more than 50% of the hospital's health services have been put out of operation and the 4th floor and the wing of Médecins Sans Frontières hosted at the hospital have been badly damaged. For all the above reasons, we consider it crucial for the survival of the Palestinian people to support in every way the smooth operation of the hospital and more broadly the health network of the Gaza Strip, as a minimum measure of elementary humanity and solidarity (let alone as a minimum sample of persistence in the downtrodden by the occupying army international law) against the most barbaric expression of occupation: the extermination of patients and medical-nursing personnel.