The intensive care unit of a hospital is where the most desperately ill and at risk go for treatment. But this past week, Israel turned the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza into a free-fire zone. Israeli forces also attacked the nursery, the maternity ward, and other departments in the hospital with “sniper fire, tank shells, and quadcopters [drones],” the hospital’s director said on December 22. “For more than an hour now, shells are raining down on us from every corner, mile, and direction.”

The Kamal Adwan Hospital has been one of the few in north Gaza that was even functioning, and it was barely holding on. This past week Israel ordered people inside and around the hospital to evacuate. They surrounded the hospital with tanks, troops, and drones, making it virtually impossible for any of the patients or staff to carry out the evacuation order. Then the Israeli forces launched their murderous attack on the hospital. In recent days, “many injuries” were reported “as bullets penetrated the walls, also damaging equipment.”

Despite the pleas from the hospital’s staff and patients, none of the world’s global powers, who claim to uphold humanitarian law, took any meaningful action to stop this depraved onslaught. 

Escalating Campaign of Genocide—Focused on Northern Gaza

The attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital is yet another example of Israel’s criminal campaign to totally destroy all healthcare in Gaza—hospitals, clinics, ambulances—as well as murder healthcare workers. This is a key part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people as a whole. The official death toll after 14 straight months of relentless Israeli attacks—on people who stand defenseless against tanks, missiles and warplanes—now stands at over 46,000 people, overwhelmingly children and other civilians. According to a study by the medical journal The Lancet, the actual toll of direct and indirect deaths caused by Israel in Gaza may be over 186,000!

This genocide is now focused in northern Gaza, which Israel has sealed off from the outside world and the rest of Gaza. 

Israel’s Genocide: Impossible Without Massive U.S. Support

The Biden-Harris administration has repeatedly uttered deceitful words of “concern” for the horrendous suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, and claims that the U.S. is calling on Israel to “restrain” itself. 

The reality is that the U.S. has fully backed, armed, funded, defended, and enabled Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza—from the day it began following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, reactionary attack, until today. This has included at least $22.76 billion for Israel’s military operations and related U.S. operations in the region. The U.S. has provided military advice and intelligence to Israel. It has repeatedly vetoed UN resolutions calling for a halt to Israel’s onslaught in Gaza. And the propaganda organs of the U.S. rulers—i.e., the major news media—have repeated Israel’s excuses for its genocide. 

In short, this massive, barbaric genocide could not take place without U.S. backing. The blood is on America’s hands.