Israel’s army on Saturday mentioned a hospital director is being held as a suspected Hamas militant after a north Gaza raid the World Well being Group mentioned left the realm’s final main well being facility emptied of sufferers and workers.
The army mentioned the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, is being held for questioning, on suspicion of “being a Hamas terrorist operative”, and that the raid is now over.
Gaza well being officers and the WHO earlier Saturday mentioned the raid compelled the hospital in Beit Lahia out of service and led to Abu Safiyeh’s detention.
Additionally Saturday, the army mentioned it intercepted two projectiles fired at Israel from northern Gaza, a uncommon assault greater than 14 months into Israel’s struggle with the Palestinian militants, whose high leaders have been killed.
Since October 6, Israeli operations in Gaza have centered on the north, the place they are saying their land and air offensive goals to forestall Hamas from regrouping.
“The state of affairs is catastrophic,” mentioned Ammar al-Barsh, 50, a resident of Jabalia, close to Beit Lahia. “There is no such thing as a medical service, no ambulances and no civil defence within the north.”
Israel’s army says it has killed a whole bunch of militants since October 6, whereas rescuers within the space say 1000’s of civilians have died.
“Kamal Adwan is now empty,” the WHO mentioned, including that it was “appalled” by the raid which adopted escalating restrictions and repeated assaults.
It was additionally the most recent raid in opposition to a hospital in the course of the struggle.
“The systematic dismantling of the well being system and a siege for over 80 days on north Gaza places the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining within the space in danger,” the UN well being company mentioned in a press release.
Israel’s army mentioned it had “accomplished a focused operation in opposition to a Hamas command centre within the Kamal Adwan Hospital”, resulting in the detention of “over 240 terrorists within the space”.
– Instructed to strip –
Other than detaining Abu Safiyeh, who’s being questioned in Gaza, the army mentioned it’s holding “Hamas engineering and anti-tank missile operatives and roughly 15 terrorists who infiltrated Israel in the course of the October seventh bloodbath” in 2023.
WHO mentioned the remaining 15 essential sufferers, 50 caregivers and 20 well being staff have been transferred on Friday to the close by Indonesian Hospital, which it described as “destroyed and non-functional”.
It mentioned WHO would undertake an pressing mission to the Indonesian Hospital on Sunday, partly to maneuver the essential sufferers to Gaza Metropolis.
WHO mentioned preliminary stories indicated that some areas of the Kamal Adwan hospital have been burnt and severely broken in the course of the raid.
Hamas-run Gaza’s well being ministry earlier reported that a number of medical workers had been detained together with Abu Safiyeh.
One of many Gazans evacuated, who requested to be recognized solely as Mohammad for safety causes, informed AFP some evacuees have been informed to strip.
“As we started to exit, the military requested all younger males to take off their garments and stroll exterior the hospital,” mentioned Mohammad, whose brother was a affected person there.
– ‘Command and management centre’ –
Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani mentioned this apply “will not be a type of humiliation” however so troops can guarantee “nobody is booby-trapped or is carrying explosives or gun on them”.
Mohammad mentioned: “They took tens of younger males, in addition to physicians and sufferers, to an unknown place… The younger males have been interrogated. They have been requested about resistance fighters, Hamas and weapons.”
Final Monday, Abu Safiyeh had accused Israel of focusing on the hospital “with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the folks inside”.
The army mentioned it had recognized Kamal Adwan as utilized by “terrorists… for army operations in Jabalia”.
“This was a command and management centre that we understood was for a lot of dozens of terrorists or just a few a whole bunch,” Shoshani mentioned.
Troops performed “exact actions” contained in the hospital and situated and confiscated weapons, a army assertion mentioned.
Earlier than starting the raid, the army mentioned it helped to evacuate 350 sufferers, caregivers and medical workers.
In a press release, Hamas dismissed as “lies” Israeli allegations that its operatives have been on the hospital.
Gaza’s well being ministry earlier quoted Abu Safiyeh as reporting “a lot of accidents among the many medical workforce”.
The army has often accused Hamas of utilizing hospitals as command centres.
WHO mentioned one other north Gaza hospital, Al-Awda in Jabalia, is “barely capable of operate, and severely broken on account of latest air strikes”.
Israel’s former defence minister Moshe Yaalon final month used Beit Lahia for example when he accused the military of “ethnic cleaning” in Gaza, feedback dismissed as “dishonest” by the Likud celebration to which he as soon as belonged.
A separate Israeli strike in central Gaza killed at the least 9 Palestinians on Saturday, Gaza’s civil defence mentioned.
The Gaza struggle was triggered by the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, assault on Israel, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, largely civilians, in keeping with an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory army marketing campaign has killed at the least 45,484 folks in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, in keeping with figures from the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry that the UN considers dependable.
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