Israel arrested the director of one of the hospitals in northern Gaza during the raid

The Israeli army arrested the director of one of the north of Gaza Hospitals that remained open as overnight strikes elsewhere killed nine people, including children, Palestinian medical officials said on Saturday. The Israeli military suspects that Hamas terrorists were using the facility and says that more than 240 people have been arrested.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested on Friday along with a number of other employees and taken to an interrogation center. The ministry said that Israeli soldiers stormed the hospital and forced many staff and patients outside and told them to take off their clothes in case of winter weather, according to the ministry.

The Israeli military on Saturday confirmed that it had arrested the director of the hospital and called him a suspected Hamas terrorist but did not provide evidence. While surrounding the hospital, special forces entered and found weapons in the area. It says the soldiers opened fire on its forces and “were eliminated.”

On Friday, the soldiers denied that they had entered or set fire to the hospital but admitted that they had ordered people to leave. The military also claimed that Hamas militants were working inside Kamal Adwan but did not provide evidence. Hospital officials deny that.

The hospital has been hit several times over the past three months by Israeli forces carrying out raids on isolated neighborhoods. north of Gaza against Hamas fighters says they have reunited. The Ministry of Health said that the strike that hit the hospital earlier this week killed five health workers.

MedGlobal, the charity for which Abu Safiya worked, said on Friday it was deeply concerned about him. They said the incident followed the arrest in October of five other staff members, calling it “an appalling and sinister pattern of targeting medical staff and vacancies.”

Israel’s almost 15-month-old campaign of bombings and ground attacks has devastated the health sector in Gaza. The World Health Organization said Kamal Adwan’s attack had left a health center in northern Gaza “inoperable” after increasing access restrictions, adding that “this horror must end and health care must be protected.”

The Ministry of Health said the conditions of the Kamal Adwan patients who were moved to a nearby damaged Indonesian hospital – which had also been raided – were “extremely serious.”

An Israeli military statement on Saturday said 350 patients and medical staff had been evacuated from Kamal Adwan in recent weeks, while another 95 patients, caregivers and medics had been taken to an Indonesian hospital during the operation. It also said it provided fuel and medical supplies to both hospitals.

War it killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, more than half of whom were women and children, and injured more than 108,000 others, according to the Ministry of Health. Its number does not distinguish between civilians and soldiers.

Since October, Israel’s offensive has virtually sealed off the northern Gaza areas of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and leveled large parts of them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave but thousands are believed to remain in the area where Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals are located.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after a military attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 in which they killed around 1,200 people and captured around 250 others. Another 100 Israelis are still being held captive in Gaza, and about a third are believed to be dead.

Israel continued to attack Gaza on Saturday. The overnight strike killed at least nine people in Maghazi, including women and children, according to staff at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where they were taken and an Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies.

The men cried as the bodies wrapped in white plastic covered in blood lay on the ground in the cold.

The Ministry of Health said on Saturday that 48 people died in the last 24 hours due to fire in Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel said that its forces had begun operations in the northern part of the city of Beit Hanoun, citing intelligence that Hamas forces and infrastructure were in the area.

The strikes continued in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded early Saturday morning and the military said it intercepted a missile fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Israeli warplanes also bombed key infrastructure in Yemen on Thursday. The Houthis have also been attacking ships in the Red Sea and say they will not stop until Israel agrees to end the fighting in Gaza.