3 northern Gaza hospitals say they are being ordered to evacuate, putting patients at risk

Three hospitals in northern Gaza are reportedly being ordered to evacuate by Israeli forces, putting medical staff and patients at risk, doctors at the hospitals told ABC News.

Residents of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia were ordered to evacuate on Monday to the newly created humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi -- near the southern city of Khan Younis -- according to a post on the social platform X from Avichay Adraee, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson for the Arab Media and translated by ABC News.

Medical staff told ABC News that Al-Awda Hospital, Indonesian Hospital and Kamal Adwan Hospital -- which are all partially functioning -- are in the mandatory evacuation zones and are being ordered to evacuate their medical centers.

"We are really under siege, and we are the only hospital providing services to children in northern Gaza," Dr. Husam Abu Safiyeh, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told ABC News Tuesday evening. "I also have a large number of injured and wounded people, and the Israeli army will evacuate the hospital within 24 hours. From here, I appeal to the world to let us provide humanitarian services."

Dr. Eid Sabah, the director of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan, said the Israeli armed forces allegedly contacted Safiyeh and ordered the hospital be evacuated within 24 hours, warning that medical staff and patients could be at risk of death or capture.

He said Kamal Adwan has an intensive care unit for children, a three-level nursery and a kidney dialysis department for children, as well as providing obstetrics and gynecology services in the north.

"If this hospital stops functioning, then that means many civilians will die -- these civilians are innocent women and children," he told ABC News in Arabic on Wednesday morning.

ABC News has reached out to IDF for comment.

This is not the first time the IDF has targeted Kamal Adwan Hospital. In December 2023, Israeli forces raided the hospital and, in May 2024, the vicinity around the hospital was attacked and Israeli forces blocked access to the hospital, trapping medical personnel inside.

Dr. Mohammed Salha, acting director at Al-Awda Hospital, told ABC News that he received a message from the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health that Israeli forces were ordering the hospital to be evacuated.

However, he said Al-Awda is not evacuating to keep treating patients, and he is remaining with at least 15 members of his staff.

"The main issue [is] that we are working with maternity services," he said Wednesday morning. "We have women [giving] birth here in the hospital. There is a woman in labor now [who] will have a cesarean-section operation."

Israel has claimed that Hamas uses hospitals, and networks of tunnels beneath them, as bases to conduct and promote terrorist activity, and U.S. officials have backed this claim. Hamas, however, has repeatedly denied it.

The reported evacuations come just two weeks after ABC News reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering a plan that involved forcibly expelling the remaining civilians from north Gaza and imposing a complete siege of aid and food to those who stay.

Since Hamas launched its surprise terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, more than 1,700 people in Israel have been killed and more than 8,700 have been injured, according to Israeli officials. In Gaza, more than 42,000 people have been killed and more than 97,000 people have been injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

ABC News' Victoria Beaule and Jordana Miller contributed to this report.