Qatar called the Kamal Adwan Hospital attack a “heinous crime against defenceless civilians and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strongly condemned Israel’s attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, the latest act in Israel’s ongoing decimation of the besieged territory’s healthcare sector.

On Friday, Israel destroyed the oxygen station at the hospital, resulting in the death of two children, and destroyed ambulances and electricity generators.

Israeli occupation forces also kidnapped dozens of Palestinians from the hospital after forcing them to strip down and gather outside the hospital. The Palestinian health ministry said that all male medical staff were arrested, and the women were detained in one of the rooms inside the hospital without water or food.

Qatar called the hospital attack a “heinous crime against defenceless civilians and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stresses that Israeli attacks on civilian facilities, including storming and besieging hospitals, constitute a serious escalation in the course of confrontations and portend dire consequences for the security and stability of the region,” the statement said.

The ministry also urged the international community to take responsibility and ensure the protection of the many children, patients, wounded individuals, and medical staff detained by Israeli occupation authorities within the hospital.

The hospital’s director Hussam Abu Safiya was also taken for interrogation before being released. According to Al Jazeera journalist Tareq Abu Azzoum, Israeli forces had detained Abu Safiya’s young son Ibrahim, and killed him because his father had refused to vacate the hospital.

Footage on social media showing Abu Safiya leading the funeral prayers.

According to sources reported by Anadolu Agency, the Israeli army is holding hospital staff, patients, and wounded people inside a room in the hospital with little knowledge about their fate.

Maher Shamiyeh, the Assistant Under-Secretary for Gaza’s Health Ministry, told Anadolu that he urged the United Nations and international bodies “to immediately intervene to protect the health staff and patients, and to pressure on the Israeli army to withdraw from the hospitals in northern Gaza”.

Israel kills Lebanese journalists in air raids

Separately, MoFA also condemned the killing and wounding of several Lebanese journalists after the guesthouse they were using in the south of the country was targeted by an Israeli air strike in the early hours of Friday.

Several journalists and media personnel were staying at a guesthouse in the village of Hasbaya in the southern Nabatieh governorate when an air strike hit the building, killing three journalists and wounding three others as they slept.

In a statement, Qatar said that is considers the attack to be “an extension of the series of heinous and systematic crimes of targeting journalists” and a “flagrant encroachment on freedom of media and expression and the peoples’ right to information.”

The area has been previously used by other media channels and platforms to host journalists covering Israel’s attack on Lebanon. The Israeli occupation army did not issue a an evacuation warning prior to the rare strike on the area.

Al-Mayadeen TV’s camerman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida were killed, as well as Al-Manar TV camera operator Wissam Qassim.

On Wednesday night, an Israeli airstrike also destroyed an Al-Mayadeen office.

Qatar stressed the need to hold Israel accountable for the airstrike and called for urgent international action to bring an end to Israel’s targeting of the media.

“When journalists, protected under international humanitarian law, are targeted, so too are our fundamental rights to the freedom of information and expression,” Deputy UN Spokesperson Farhan Haq said following the attack.

The air strike is an extension of Israel’s blatant targeting of journalists and the press in the Gaza Strip and Occupied West Bank.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 131 journalist and media personnel were killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Occupied Palestine, and Lebanon since October 7, 2023 – the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began collecting data in 1992.