The Israeli army arrested the director of one of the last operating hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, while the World Health Organization reiterated its call to protect hospitals in the Palestinian Strip that are being bombed.
The World Health Organization said, in a statement on Saturday, that Kamal Adwan Hospital is “now empty” after the Israeli army raided the facility and forced dozens of medical staff and patients out.
The UN health agency said: “Yesterday evening, the remaining 15 critically ill patients, 50 caregivers and 20 health workers were transferred to the Indonesian hospital, which lacks the necessary equipment and supplies to provide adequate care.”
“The movement and treatment of these patients under these conditions poses serious risks to their survival. The World Health Organization is deeply concerned for their safety, as well as for the hospital director, Kamal Adwan, who was reportedly arrested during the raid.
The World Health Organization said it had lost contact with its director, Hossam Abu Safiya, since the raid began.
The Israeli army said it launched the raid on Kamal Adwan — which, as of Friday morning, housed about 350 patients and medical staff — because the hospital “serves as a terrorist stronghold for Hamas.”
Israel did not provide any evidence to support its claims, and Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules the Gaza Strip, said it “categorically” denies the allegation.
This morning’s raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital has placed the last major health facility in the north in ruins #Gaza Out of service. Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burned and destroyed during the raid.
60 health workers and 25 patients are in critical condition. pic.twitter.com/bD5eJgnVkR
– World Health Organization (@WHO) December 27, 2024
Gaza health officials said earlier on Saturday that Israeli forces had transferred Abu Safiya along with dozens of other hospital workers to a “detention center for interrogation.”
The Israeli army later confirmed that Abu Safiya was among those detained for interrogation. His exact whereabouts are unknown.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza had previously quoted Abu Safiya as saying that the army “set fire to all the surgical departments in the hospital” and that there were “a large number of injuries” among the medical team.
“Hospitals turn into battlefields”
The raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital comes amid a renewed Israeli ground offensive into northern Gaza, which began in October. Israel imposed a blockade on the area, severely restricting the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians there.
The WHO said it had also documented “escalating access restrictions and repeated attacks” on the health facility since early October.
“The World Health Organization calls on us to ensure that hospitals in northern Gaza can be urgently supported so that they can operate again,” the organization said in a statement on Saturday.
“Hospitals have once again become battlefields, a reminder of the destruction of the health system in Gaza City earlier this year.”
The Israeli army claimed that the hospital had become “a major stronghold for terrorist organizations and is still being used as a hideout for terrorist activists.”
Before starting the final attack on Kamal Adwan, the Israeli army said that its soldiers “facilitated the safe evacuation of civilians, patients and medical workers.”
Hamas denied the presence of its fighters in the hospital and urged the United Nations to form an investigation committee “to examine the extent of the crime committed in northern Gaza.”
Hamas said in a statement: “We categorically deny the presence of any military or resistance activity in the hospital.”
Al Jazeera’s Hamda Salhout said that the Israeli army often accuses Hamas fighters of operating from medical facilities but has never provided evidence for its claims.
“The most notable was the raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in 2023 when the army said Hamas was using Al-Shifa as a command and control center, allegations that have not been proven to this day,” she said.
“Now, Kamal Adwan was the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza, but it was barely functioning because of the blockade imposed by Israeli forces – a blockade on food, water and all kinds of medical supplies.”
Witnesses recount the ordeal
Ismail Al-Kahlot, a nurse working at the hospital, told Al Jazeera that staff and patients were held in the cold for hours by the Israeli army after being stripped almost naked.
Some Palestinians, including the wounded and sick, were beaten. “The Israeli soldiers kept us tied and blindfolded,” he said. “We could hear people screaming, but we couldn’t tell who exactly was being beaten.”
Shorouk Al-Rantisi, who was also trapped in Kamal Adwan, said that Israeli soldiers denied people water and prevented them from going to the toilet.
“We are living in humiliation,” she told Al Jazeera. “We’re exhausted. We’re tired. We’ve had enough.”
The hospital director has repeatedly raised concerns about the situation in recent days.
“The world must understand that our hospital is targeted with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the people inside it,” Abu Safiya said in a statement on Monday.
The Israeli attack has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians since October last year, most of them children and women, according to health officials in the Strip. The majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble.
