The Israeli army detained the director of one of the northern Gaza Nine people, including children, were killed in overnight strikes elsewhere in the territory at the last operating hospitals, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday. The Israeli military claims Hamas militants used the facility and said more than 240 people were detained.
Gaza's health ministry said Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested on Friday along with dozens of other staff members and taken to a center for interrogation. The ministry said Israeli troops stormed the hospital and forced many staff and patients outside and ordered them to strip in winter weather, the ministry said.
The Israeli military confirmed on Saturday that it had detained a hospital director and named him as a suspected Hamas operative, without providing any evidence. He said he surrounded the hospital and special forces entered and found weapons in the area. It said militants fired on his forces and they were “liquidated”.
OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images
On Friday, the military denied entering or setting fire to the hospital complex, but admitted ordering people out. The military repeated claims that Hamas militants were operating inside Kamal Advan, but provided no evidence. Hospital representatives deny this.
Over the past three months, the hospital has been attacked several times by Israeli forces, who are waging a largely isolated offensive northern Gaza against Hamas militants, as they say, regrouped. The Ministry of Health reported that five medical workers were killed in an attack on a hospital earlier this week.
MedGlobal, the humanitarian organization where Abu Safiya worked, said on Friday it was deeply concerned about him. It said the incident followed the arrest of five other staff in October, calling it a “disturbing and egregious pattern of attacks on medical staff and facilities”.
Israel's nearly 15-month campaign of bombing and ground offensives has devastated Gaza's health sector. The World Health Organization said the raid on Kamal Advan left the last major medical facility in northern Gaza “out of order” after restrictions on access were tightened, adding that “this horror must end and health care must be protected.”
The health ministry said conditions for Kamal Advan's patients who were transferred to a damaged Indonesian hospital nearby – also in the past – were “extremely difficult”.
Abdel Karim Khan / AP
The Israeli military said in a statement Saturday that 350 patients and medical staff had been evacuated from Kamal Advan in recent weeks, while another 95 patients, caregivers and medical staff had been evacuated to an Indonesian hospital during the operation. He also said he has provided fuel and medical supplies to both hospitals.
War According to the Ministry of Health, more than 45,400 Palestinians were killed, more than half of whom were women and children, and more than 108,000 were injured. His count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Since October, Israel's offensive has virtually surrounded the northern Gaza districts of Jabalia, Beit Hanun, and Beit Lahiya and leveled a large part 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 vowed to destroy Hamas after the militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which they killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped around 250. About 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, and about a third are believed to have died.
Israel continued its attacks on Gaza on Saturday. At least nine people, including women and children, were killed in the overnight strike in Maghazi, according to officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital, where they were taken, and an Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies.
Men wept as bodies, wrapped in bloody white plastic, lay on the morgue floor.
The Ministry of Health said on Saturday that 48 people had died in the last 24 hours as a result of Israeli fire.
Meanwhile, Israel said its troops had begun operating in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, citing intelligence that Hamas militants and infrastructure were in the area.
Strikes also continued in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded early Saturday and the military said it had intercepted a missile fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes bombed Yemen's key infrastructure again. The Houthis have also attacked ships in the Red Sea and say they will not stop until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.