Israeli forces detained more than 240 Palestinians from a north Gaza hospital they raided on Friday, including the hospital’s director and dozens of medical staff, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and Israel’s military.
The Health Ministry said it was concerned for the well-being of Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, as some staff freed by the Israeli military late Friday said he had been beaten by soldiers.
The Israeli military said the hospital was being used as a command centre for Hamas military operations and those arrested were suspected militants. It said Abu Safiya had been taken for questioning as he was suspected of being a Hamas operative.
On Friday, Hamas dismissed Israel’s assertion that its fighters had operated from the hospital throughout the 15-month-old Gaza war, saying no fighters had been in the hospital. The group had not yet commented on the 240 arrests.
In its statement on Saturday, Hamas urged the UN and relevant international agencies to intervene urgently to protect the remaining hospitals and medical facilities in northern Gaza, and to supply them.
The group also called for UN observers to be sent to medical facilities in Gaza to refute the Israeli allegations that they were being used for military purposes.
The raid on the hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in the area out of service, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X on Friday.
In a statement released Saturday, it said: “WHO is appalled by yesterday’s raid. The systematic dismantling of the health system and a siege for over 80 days on North Gaza puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk.”
Some patients were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian Hospital, which is not in service, and medics were prevented from joining them there, the Health Ministry said. Other patients and staff were taken to other medical facilities.
Devastation in north Gaza
The Israeli military said 350 patients and medical personnel had been evacuated prior to the Kamal Adwan operation, while another 95 had been evacuated to the Indonesian Hospital during the operation, in co-ordination with local health authorities.
Separately, the Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli strikes across the enclave killed 18 Palestinians on Saturday, at least nine of them in a house in Maghazi camp in central Gaza.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strikes and fatalities.
In the past few months, Israeli forces have pushed people out and razed much of the area around the northern Gaza towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
Amnesty International has accused the state of Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war in a new report, an allegation Israel vehemently denied, saying it has respected international law.
Palestinians have accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing by depopulating those areas to create a buffer zone. Israel denies it is doing this, saying it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping in the areas.
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had begun operating overnight against targets in the Beit Hanoun area, adding that “troops are enabling civilians still in the area to move away for their own safety.”
It then ordered residents to leave and head toward southern parts of Gaza.
It said two rockets fired from north Gaza, including one toward Jerusalem, had been intercepted.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas, which previously controlled Gaza, has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, according to health officials in the enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.