The Israeli army arrested Uhud’s manager North Gaza Palestinian medical officials said on Saturday the last hospitals operating as overnight raids elsewhere in the Strip killed nine people, including children. The Israeli army claimed that Hamas activists were using the facility and said that more than 240 people had been arrested.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested on Friday along with dozens of other workers and was transferred to an investigation center. The ministry said that Israeli forces stormed the hospital and forced many employees and patients to leave and asked them to take off their clothes in the winter weather, according to the ministry.
The Israeli army confirmed on Saturday that it had arrested the hospital director, describing him as a suspected Hamas activist without providing any evidence. She added that they surrounded the hospital, entered the special forces and found weapons in the area. She added that the gunmen opened fire on her forces and were “eliminated.”
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On Friday, the army denied entering the hospital compound or setting it on fire, but acknowledged that it had ordered people to leave. The army repeated its claims that Hamas fighters were operating inside Kamal Adwan but did not provide any evidence. Hospital officials denied this.
The hospital has been bombed several times over the past three months by Israeli forces who launched an attack in a largely isolated area. North Gaza Against Hamas fighters, which it says have regrouped. The Ministry of Health said a raid on the hospital earlier this week killed five medical workers.
MedGlobal, the humanitarian organization where Abu Safiya worked, said on Friday that it was deeply concerned about him. She said the incident comes after the arrest of five other staff in October, describing it as a “disturbing and atrocious pattern of targeting medical workers and medical settings”.
Israel’s nearly 15-month campaign of bombing and ground attacks has devastated Gaza’s health sector. The WHO said the raid on Kamal Adwan put the last major health facility in northern Gaza “out of service” after increasing restrictions on access, adding that “this horror must end and healthcare must be protected.”
The Health Ministry said conditions for Kamal Adwan’s patients who were transferred to the damaged Indonesian hospital nearby – which had also been raided in the past – were “extremely difficult”.
Abdel Karim Hanna/AP
An Israeli military statement on Saturday said that 350 patients and medical workers were evacuated from Kamal Adwan in recent weeks, and 95 patients, caregivers and medical workers were evacuated to the Indonesian hospital during the operation. It also said it provided fuel and medical supplies to the two hospitals.
War Israel killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, and injured more than 108,000 others, according to the Ministry of Health. Their number does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Since October, the Israeli attack has effectively closed off the Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia areas in northern Gaza, leveling large parts of them to the ground. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced out, but thousands are believed to remain in the area where Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals are located.
Israel pledged to destroy Hamas after the attack launched by militants on October 7, 2023 on southern Israel, in which they killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others. About 100 Israelis remain detained in Gaza, and about a third of them are believed to be dead.
Israel continued its attacks across Gaza on Saturday. An overnight raid killed at least nine people in Maghazi, including women and children, according to workers at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where they were taken and an Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies.
The men cried as bodies wrapped in white plastic and covered in blood lay on the morgue floor.
The Ministry of Health said on Saturday that 48 people were killed in the past 24 hours by Israeli fire.
Meanwhile, Israel said its forces had begun operating in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, citing intelligence information about the presence of Hamas fighters and infrastructure in the area.
Strikes also continued in Israel. Sirens sounded early Saturday, and the military said it intercepted a missile fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Israeli warplanes bombed key infrastructure in Yemen again on Thursday. The Houthis are also attacking ships in the Red Sea and say they will not stop until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.
