Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maytaal Angel
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli forces arrested dozens of medical staff from a northern Gaza hospital they raided on Friday, the enclave’s health ministry said.
The Israeli army raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia on Friday, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to evacuate and detaining medical staff, including the facility’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya.
The health ministry said it was unclear what was happening to Abu Safiya, adding that it was concerned for his welfare after some of the personnel freed by the army late on Friday reported being beaten by soldiers.
The Israeli army has not yet commented on the arrests.
An attack on a hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in northern Gaza out of action, the World Health Organization said in a statement on X.
Some patients were evacuated to an Indonesian hospital, which is not operational, and doctors were prevented from joining them there, the Ministry of Health said. Some others were transferred to another hospital in the southern Gaza Strip.
Some of the freed medical staff arrived at Al-Ahly Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.
Israel’s military said Friday that Hamas fighters had operated from Kamal Adwan Hospital during the 15-month war and had made the site a key stronghold. Hamas dismissed this as “lies”, saying there were no fighters in the hospital.
Gaza’s health ministry also said that 18 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave on Saturday, at least nine of them in a house in the Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army said on Saturday that it began operating overnight against targets in the Beit Hanoun area of the northern Gaza Strip. “Soldiers are allowing civilians still in the area to move away for their own safety,” it said.
Over the past few months, Israeli forces have driven out people and leveled much of the area around the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
Palestinians have accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing by depopulating those areas to create a buffer zone. Israel denies doing so, saying it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping in these areas.
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 have been displaced, and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli figures.
