The Israeli army arrested the director of one of the northern Gaza The last hospitals functioning as overnight strikes elsewhere in the territory killed nine people, including children, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday. The Israeli military claimed Hamas militants were using the facilities and said more than 240 people had been arrested.
Gaza’s health ministry said 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 asked them to undress in the winter, according to the ministry.
The Israeli army confirmed on Saturday that it had arrested the hospital director and called him a suspected member of Hamas, without providing any evidence. He said they surrounded the hospital and that special forces entered and found weapons in the area. He said the militants fired on his forces and they were “eliminated”.
OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images
On Friday, the army denied entering the hospital complex or setting it on fire, but admitted ordering people to leave. The military reiterated its claims that Hamas militants were operating inside Kamal Adwan, but provided no evidence. Hospital officials denied this.
The hospital has been hit several times over the past three months by Israeli troops carrying out an offensive in a largely isolated region. northern Gaza against Hamas fighters who would have regrouped. The health ministry said a strike on the hospital earlier this week killed five medical staff.
MedGlobal, the humanitarian organization for which Abu Safiya worked, said on Friday it was very worried about his fate. He said the incident followed the October detention of five other staff members, calling it an “alarming and egregious trend of targeting of medical staff and spaces.”
Israel’s nearly 15-month campaign of bombings and ground offensives has devastated Gaza’s health sector. The World Health Organization said the raid on Kamal Adwan had put northern Gaza’s last major health facility “out of service” after increasing restrictions on access, adding that “this horror must end and treatment health must be protected.
The health ministry said conditions for patients from Kamal Adwan who were transferred to the damaged nearby Indonesian hospital – also raided in the past – were “extremely difficult”.
Abdel Karim Hana / AP
The Israeli military statement said Saturday that 350 patients and 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 also said it had provided fuel and medical supplies to the two hospitals.
The war killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, more than half of whom were women and children, and injured more than 108,000 others, according to the Health Ministry. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Since October, the Israeli offensive has virtually sealed off the areas of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, and razed large parts of them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been expelled, but thousands more are believed to have remained in the area where Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals are located.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the militants’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which they killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped some 250 others. Around 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, and around a third are believed to have died.
Israel continued its attacks across Gaza on Saturday. An overnight strike killed at least nine people in Maghazi, including women and children, according to staff at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where they were taken and an Associated Press journalist who saw the bodies .
The men cried as the bodies, wrapped in bloody white plastic, lay on the morgue floor.
The Health Ministry said Saturday that 48 people had been killed in the past 24 hours by Israeli fire.
Meanwhile, Israel said its troops had begun operating in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, citing reports that Hamas fighters and infrastructure were in the area.
Strikes also continued in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded Saturday morning and the military said it had intercepted a missile fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Israeli military planes again bombed key infrastructure in Yemen on Thursday. The Houthis have also attacked ships in the Red Sea and say they will not stop until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.