Israeli forces arrested more than 240 Palestinians at a hospital in northern Gaza that they attacked on Friday, including the hospital director and dozens of medical staff, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the Israeli army.
The Health Ministry expressed concern for the well-being of Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, as some staff members released by the Israeli army on Friday evening said he had been beaten by soldiers.
The Israeli military said the hospital was used as a command center for Hamas military operations and that those arrested were suspected militants. He said Abu Safiya was questioned because he was suspected of being a member of Hamas.
Hamas on Friday rejected Israel’s claim that its fighters had operated from hospital throughout the 15-month Gaza war, saying no fighters had been hospitalized. The group has not yet commented on the 240 arrests.
In its statement on Saturday, Hamas urged the UN and relevant international agencies to urgently intervene to protect and supply the remaining hospitals and medical facilities in northern Gaza.
The group also called for UN observers to be sent to Gaza’s medical facilities to refute Israeli claims that they were being used for military purposes.
The raid on the hospital, one of three medical facilities on Gaza’s northern edge, knocked out the region’s last major health facility, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement. message published Friday on X.
In a statement released on Saturday, the organization said: “WHO is dismayed by yesterday’s raid. The systematic dismantling of the health system and the more than 80-day siege in northern Gaza endangers the lives of 75 000 Palestinians remaining in the region.”
Some patients were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian hospital, which is not in service, and doctors were unable to reach them, the health ministry said. Other patients and staff were taken to other medical facilities.
Devastation in northern Gaza
The Israeli military said 350 patients and medical staff were evacuated before Operation Kamal Adwan, while 95 others were evacuated to the Indonesian hospital during the operation, in coordination with local health authorities.
Separately, Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli strikes across the enclave killed 18 Palestinians on Saturday, including at least nine in a house in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes and the deaths.
In recent months, Israeli forces have chased people away and razed much of the area around the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
Amnesty International has accused the State of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war in a new report, an allegation Israel has vehemently denied, saying it respected international law.
The Palestinians have accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing by depopulating these areas in order to create a buffer zone. Israel denies doing so, saying its aim is to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping in these areas.
The Israeli army said Saturday that it had begun operating overnight against targets in the Beit Hanoun area, adding that “troops are allowing civilians still in the area to move away for their own safety.”
He then ordered residents to leave and head towards southern Gaza.
He said two rockets fired from northern Gaza, including one towards Jerusalem, had been intercepted.
The Israeli campaign against Hamas, which previously controlled Gaza, has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, according to health officials in the enclave. Most of the 2.3 million residents have been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was sparked by the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli counts.
