The Israeli army has arrested the director of one of them North Gaza Palestinian doctors said on Saturday that the last functioning hospitals had been destroyed as nine people, including children, were killed in overnight strikes elsewhere in the territory. The Israeli military claimed that Hamas militants were using the facility and said over 240 people were arrested.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested on Friday along with dozens of other staff and taken to an interrogation center. The ministry said Israeli troops stormed the hospital and forced many staff and patients outside and told them to take off their clothes in winter weather, the ministry said.
The Israeli military confirmed the detention of the hospital director on Saturday, describing him as a suspected Hamas operative, but provided no evidence. It said it had surrounded the hospital and that special forces had entered the area and found weapons there. It said militants fired on its troops and they were “eliminated”.
OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images
On Friday, the military denied entering the hospital complex or setting it on fire but admitted it had sent people out. The military repeated claims that Hamas militants were operating in Kamal Adwan, but provided no evidence. Hospital officials have denied this.
The hospital has been attacked several times in the last three months by Israeli troops, who have been waging an offensive largely in isolation northern Gaza Strip It is said that Hamas fighters have regrouped. The Health Ministry said a hospital strike earlier this week left five medical workers dead.
MedGlobal, the humanitarian organization where Abu Safiya worked, said Friday it was deeply concerned for him. It said the incident followed the arrest of five other staff members in October, calling it an “alarming and egregious pattern of targeting medical staff and spaces.”
Israel’s nearly 15-month bombing and ground-strike campaign has devastated Gaza’s health sector. The World Health Organization said the raid on Kamal Adwan had put the last major health facility in northern Gaza “out of action” after increasing access restrictions, adding that “this horror must end and health care must be protected.”
The Health Ministry said conditions were “extremely difficult” for Kamal Adwan patients transferred to the damaged nearby Indonesian hospital, which was also raided in the past.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
The Israeli military’s statement on Saturday said that 350 patients along with medical staff had been evacuated from Kamal Adwan in recent weeks, and another 95 patients, caregivers and medical staff were evacuated to the Indonesian hospital during the operation. It was also said that both hospitals had been provided with fuel and medical supplies.
The war According to the Health Ministry, more than 45,400 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them women and children, and more than 108,000 others were injured. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Since October, Israel’s offensive has effectively sealed off the northern Gaza areas of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and leveled large parts of them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced, but thousands are believed to remain in the area where Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals are located.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the militants’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which they killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others. About 100 Israelis remain trapped in Gaza, and about a third are believed to be dead.
Israel continued its attacks across the Gaza Strip on Saturday. An overnight strike in Maghazi killed at least nine people, including women and children, according to staff at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where they were taken and an Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies.
Men wept as bodies lay wrapped in bloody white plastic on the morgue floor.
The Health Ministry said on Saturday that 48 people had been killed by Israeli fire in the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Israel said its troops had begun the operation in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, citing intelligence that there were militants and Hamas infrastructure in the area.
Strikes also continued in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded early Saturday and the military said it intercepted a missile fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Israeli warplanes again bombed key infrastructure in Yemen on Thursday. The Houthis have also attacked ships in the Red Sea and said they would not stop until Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza.
