Gaza hospital director detained after Israeli raid

GAZA: An Israeli military raid targeting Hamas militants has forced a major hospital in northern Gaza out of service and led to the detention of its director, the WHO and health officials said Saturday.

The assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital has rendered the facility “useless,” further worsening Gaza’s severe health crisis, the Palestinian territory’s health officials said.

The World Health Organization said the operation had put the “last major health facility in north Gaza out of service.”

“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” it added in a statement on X.

The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including some on ventilators, reportedly remained in the hospital.

Patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed, non-functioning Indonesian Hospital, the UN health agency said, adding it was “deeply concerned for their safety.”

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry reported that Israeli forces had detained Kamal Adwan’s director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, along with several medical staff members.

AFP was unable to independently verify whether Abu Safiyeh had been detained, but multiple attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.

Gaza’s civil defense agency said Abu Safiyeh was held alongside its north Gaza chief, Ahmed Hassan Al-Kahlout.

The Israeli military did not comment on the detentions.

One of the Gazans evacuated from the hospital, who asked to be identified only as Mohammad for security reasons, told AFP some evacuees were interrogated about Hamas.

“As we began to exit, the army asked all young men to take off their clothes and walk outside the hospital,” said Mohammad, whose brother was a patient there.

“They (soldiers) took tens of young men, as well as physicians and patients, to an unknown place... The young men were interrogated, they were asked about resistance fighters, Hamas and weapons.”

Ammar Al-Barsh, a resident of Jabalia where the military has focused its assault in recent weeks, said the raid on Kamal Adwan and its environs had left dozens of homes in the area in ruins.

“The situation is catastrophic, there is no medical service, no ambulances and no civil defense in the north,” Barsh, 50, told AFP.

The army “continues to raid the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding houses, and we hear gunfire from Israeli drones and artillery shelling,” he added.

In the days leading up to the raid, Abu Safiyeh had repeatedly warned about the hospital’s precarious situation, accusing Israeli forces of targeting the facility.

On Monday, he issued a statement accusing Israel of targeting the hospital “with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the people inside.”

Since October 6, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, saying its goal is to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.

The military said Friday that it was acting on intelligence regarding “terrorist infrastructure and operatives” in the hospital’s vicinity.

Before initiating the latest operation near the hospital, the military said its troops had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical personnel.”

Hamas has denied claims its operatives were present at the hospital.

“The enemy’s lies about the hospital aim to justify the heinous crime committed by the occupation army today, involving the evacuation and burning of all hospital departments as part of a plan for extermination and forced displacement,” Hamas said in a statement.

Gaza’s health ministry had earlier quoted Abu Safiyeh reporting that the military had “set on fire all surgery departments of the hospital.”

“There are a large number of injuries among the medical team.”

Iran, which backs Hamas, “strongly condemned the brutal attack,” with a foreign ministry statement calling it “the latest example of war crimes, crimes against humanity, (and) gross violations of international law and norms.”

The Israeli military has regularly accused Hamas of using hospitals as command and control centers for attacks against its forces throughout the war.

Hamas has denied the accusations.

“This raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital comes after escalating restrictions on access for WHO and partners, and repeated attacks on or near the facility since early October,” the WHO said.

“The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care.”

Meanwhile, Hamas’s media center reported “massive Israeli air and artillery strikes in Beit Hanoun,” in northern Gaza .

The Israeli military says it has killed hundreds of militants since the stepped-up assault in northern Gaza began on October 6, while rescuers in the area say thousands of civilians have died in the sweeping offensive.

Gaza civil defense also reported that a separate Israeli strike in central Gaza killed at least nine Palestinians on Saturday.

The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,484 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.