After an hours-long communications blackout, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza told CNN that Israeli forces are still on the ground, describing the situation as “truly terrifying.”

Israeli troops were still present at the hospital when the director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, speaking to CNN shortly after 3:00 PM ET on Friday, detailed how “intense bombing” of the building had caused “glass to shatter everywhere and doors to break. ”

Abu Safiya said the Israeli army is currently searching all rooms, evacuating the displaced persons and removing 44 personnel.

At least 600 staff, patients and relatives are currently in hospital, Gaza’s Health Ministry said, describing the situation as “deteriorating” at an alarming rate.

Israeli forces cut off the hospital’s electricity and solar power supplies and prevented staff from accessing the well, he said.

Two children on ventilators died after the Israeli army blew up the hospital’s oxygen supply, Abu Safiya said.

He said children living in the nursery also had to be urgently transferred to the ICU area after Israeli soldiers opened fire on the facility. Three members of the hospital’s nursing staff were injured by sniper fire with wounds to the face, neck and chest. A cleaner was also shot in the face, he added.

The Israeli army said in an earlier statement on Friday that its forces are operating in the area of ​​the Kamal Adwan hospital “based on intelligence information about the presence of terrorists and the terrorist infrastructure.” It was claimed that the military had helped patients evacuate the area in the weeks before.

COGAT, the Israeli agency managing the flow of aid to the strip, said Friday that with the help of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and the World Health Organization, several patients and their attendants have been evacuated from the facility. The hospital also received fuel, blood units and medical equipment.

But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated on X that the hospital houses around 200 patients, along with hundreds of others seeking shelter there.