Israel Targets Hospitals and Begins Displacement of N. Gaza

77 years of persecution of Palestinians. OIC News

Jeddah, 21-05-2025 - The Gaza Strip has entered a new chapter of brutal Israeli aggression, marked by the occupation forces beginning to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip by targeting hospitals and destroying its remaining buildings. They also focused their promises to distribute aid on the southern Gaza Strip while stripping the northern Gaza Strip of its basic necessities. This occurred at a time when the number of martyrs had returned to what it was in the first days after October 7, 2023.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation's Media Observatory on Israeli Crimes Against Palestinians recorded record numbers of martyrs during the past week, with 621 martyrs and 1,763 wounded between May 13 and 19, 2025. The number of martyrs from October 7, 2023, to May 19, 2025, reached 54,941 martyrs and 129,497 wounded. The Observatory also documented the deaths of five journalists in the Gaza Strip.

Israel, the occupying power, announced its intention to bring aid into the southern Gaza Strip, confirming that it is pushing the masses of people in the northern and central Gaza Strip southward, with the aim of creating an atmosphere of what is known as "voluntary displacement" through intensified bombing, striking hospitals, or controlling the distribution of aid.

The OIC Observatory documented, between May 13 and 19, 2025, the targeting of hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip by the occupation forces, including the bombing and siege of the Indonesian Hospital, the targeting of the Hamad Hospital for Prosthetic Limbs in the northern Gaza Strip, the bombing and evacuation of the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, the bombing of Nasser Hospital and the evacuation of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex. 

The occupation forces imposed a new evacuation plan adjacent to the Al-Rimal neighborhood and the Islamic University, where thousands of displaced people reside, in addition to areas in the south and west of Gaza, as part of their campaign aimed at exhausting Palestinians and pushing them to leave the Strip. This comes after they had already displaced 300,000 Palestinians for the second time from the northern Gaza Strip, following the destruction of more than 1,000 housing units, as part of a plan to remove the remaining buildings in Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia. 

In the West Bank and occupied Al-Quds, occupation forces killed two children in Al-Quds and Nablus, wounded four others, and arrested nine children. Settlers also assaulted a girl in the Old City of Al-Khalil, wounding her. The Israeli aggression also targeted seven schools. Occupation forces raided the Bruqin Elementary School for Girls in Salfit and detained approximately 100 teachers at the Hamra checkpoint, preventing them from reaching their schools in the northern Jordan Valley in Tubas. They also raided the Al-Munjid Private School in the town of Bruqin in Salfit, the Kafr al-Dik Elementary and Secondary Girls Schools in the town of Kafr al-Dik, the Martyr Mazen Abu al-Wafa School, and Rawdat al-Salam, transforming the school into a military checkpoint during their raid on the same town. Occupation forces raided Al-Quds Open University in Tubas and confiscated surveillance camera footage. Settlers were stationed near the Nahalin Girls School in Bethlehem to harass students and staff. 

Regarding attacks on mosques, the occupation forces forced worshippers at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque to leave the mosque after closing all the gates leading to it. The extremist Israeli Finance Minister, Smotrich, burned a model of the Palestinian flag along with settlers in the outer courtyard of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil. Meanwhile, the occupation forces closed the mosque to worshippers and prevented them from performing the dawn prayer. They also raided and searched the Nafukh Mosque in Salfit and the Grand Mosque in the town of Al-Khudair in Bethlehem, detaining worshippers. The cities and towns of the West Bank witnessed 383 raids by the occupation forces, during which they arrested 175 Palestinians, demolished 9 homes, and blew up a café in Tubas, in addition to destroying 6 barns in Al-Quds and Bethlehem. They also bulldozed farmers' lands in the town of Bruqin, and bulldozed and uprooted olive trees on a side road near the Al-Abara area in Salfit. They issued a military order to bulldoze and uproot trees in an area of 232,503 dunums in the Al-Fakhakhir and Al-Balata areas of the town of Bruqin in Salfit. They also bulldozed agricultural lands and uprooted dozens of olive trees in the village of Madama in Nablus. 

The occupation forces and settlers carried out 8 settlement activities, during which the occupation forces confiscated 13,117 dunams of land in the town of Bruqin in Salfit. Settlers dug and bulldozed an archaeological site in the town of Sebastia in preparation for its confiscation and the establishment of a park in the area. Others erected a number of tents near the "Vered Yeriho" settlement junction, south of the city of Jericho, and seized an area between the villages of Deir Nizam and Deir Abu Mash'al in Ramallah. Meanwhile, the occupation forces bulldozed agricultural lands north of the town of Qusra in Nablus with the aim of paving a road and building a fence around it, to annex it to the "Majdoulin" settlement. Settlers erected mobile homes to establish a new settlement outpost between the towns of Taffuh and Dura in Al-Khalil. They placed a barbed wire fence around a piece of land in the Al-Faw area of Tubas. Others seized a sheep pen from the Arab Al-Malihat tribe in Ramallah, set up a tent there, and placed a fence around it, in an attempt to establish a settlement outpost. 

The number of occupation crimes in one week reached 3,775 crimes across the Palestinian territories, including 74 settler attacks in seven days. During these days, settlers destroyed the contents of a Palestinian home near Tubas and burned an agricultural farm in the village of Al-Mughayyir in Ramallah. Others grazed their sheep on agricultural lands between the areas of Khirbet Aqweis, Shaab Al-Batm, and Masafer in the town of Yatta in Al-Khalil, and the waterfall of the town of Al-Auja in Jericho. Others cut off olive tree branches in the town of Yatta in Al-Khalil. Settlers burned agricultural lands near the villages of Duma and Barqa in Nablus, and stole a water tanker from the village of Al-Sakout in Tubas, and a number of sheep in the village of Majdal Bani Fadel in Nablus. Others damaged the tires of two water tankers and cut 300 meters of water lines in the Al-Mayta area. Another group damaged water lines in the northern Jordan Valley in Tubas. – OIC News