According to Israel’s military and the Health Ministry in the enclave, Israeli soldiers detained around 240 Palestinians—including dozens of medical workers and the facility’s director, from a hospital they invaded in north Gaza on Friday. According to the Health Ministry, Friday’s airstrikes targeting the area around the hospital killed an estimated 50 individuals including the medical staff. The administration of the hospital have made urgent requests to be safeguarded in recent days, claiming that Israeli bombardment and explosives have started to routinely target the facility.
In a raid that shut down the last significant operational medical facility in northern Gaza, Israel detained the hospital director and Israeli soldiers were furthermore accused of compelling patients to remove their clothes out on the streets. The director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, was claimed to be assaulted by forces leading to the Health Ministry expressing worry about his well-being. According to the IDF, Abu Safiya was detained for interrogation as they believed that he was a Hamas agent.
The shutdown of the facility, which has been often targeted by Israeli bombardment in recent months, worsens the already poor humanitarian conditions in northern Gaza. According to the Israel Defence Forces, patients were relocated for their own protection since the facility was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold.”
Israel did not support its claim with any proof, and Hamas stated that it “categorically” disputed the accusation. In order to save Gaza’s surviving medical institutions, Hamas has urged the UN to intervene. Their statement demanded for “the sending of international observers to these facilities to ascertain the truth of what is happening and to refute the lies and claims of the occupation regarding their use for military purposes.”
The World Health Organization stated that the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians who are still in the region are in danger due to Israel’s “systematic dismantling of the health system” along with the siege of the people in the northern part of the coastal strip throughout the last 80 days.
Early this October, the Israeli military said they were pursuing a revived Hamas presence in northern Gaza when they began an aerial and ground operation in many areas of the territory. Whole families have been murdered, streets have been reduced to piles of rubble and supplies of food, water, and medicine have been drastically diminished as a consequence of this inhumane onslaught.
