The Israeli Army announced this Sunday that the Kamal Adwan hospital, one of the main medical centers in the northern Gaza Strip, will be closed for security reasons after a military operation in which Israeli forces detained 240 people.
Before launching the operation, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it allowed the evacuation of 350 patients, caregivers and medical staff to other hospitals in an effort coordinated by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) of the Ministry of Defense. According to military information, Israel killed 19 Hamas members. However, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry offered a different version. According to his figures, the assault left at least 50 dead, including medical personnel and patients, and he described the operation as a “war crime.”
Among those arrested is the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, whom Israel accuses of being a senior Hamas commander. According to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the operation sought to dismantle an alleged military infrastructure within the hospital. “Hamas uses medical facilities to shelter and coordinate its operations,” an army spokesman stated.
Amnesty International has denounced the arrest of Dr. Abu Safiya and demanded his immediate release. “Hospitals and health personnel are not objectives. “The international community and Israel’s allies must act to end the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza,” the organization said in a statement.
“For months, Doctor Abu Safiya has been the voice of Gaza’s decimated health sector, calling for the protection of his hospital and working in inhumane conditions, even after the murder of his son,” adds the NGO.
The chain CNN published this Monday that the director of the medical center is being held in the infamous Sde Teiman prison, known as the “Israeli Guantanamo.”
“Our father is suffering in Israeli custody. “You have all heard from recently released witnesses how our father was forced to remove his clothes, including his medical gown, and was severely beaten and used as a human shield,” Abu Safiya’s relatives said in a statement.
Abu Safiya had become one of the most visible faces of the harsh siege that the north of the Strip has suffered for more than two months, and in recent weeks he published almost daily videos about the situation at Kamal Adwan, which continued to treat patients. despite constant Israeli attacks.
The operation in Kamal Adwan has intensified the debate on the use of civilian facilities in armed conflicts. While Israel insists that Hamas hides behind hospitals and schools, international organizations have condemned the attacks on medical infrastructure.
With more than half of the hospitals in the Strip out of service, the closure of Kamal Adwan is a new blow to a health system on the brink of collapse.
Israel, however, maintains that its operations are necessary to ensure the security of its citizens and weaken Hamas. In a statement issued after the operation, the Army reaffirmed its commitment to continue with similar actions until “eliminating the operational capabilities” of the Islamist group. Meanwhile, the needs of the civilian population continue to be ignored in political and military discourse.
According to the IDF, some of the terrorists “posed as medical personnel and patients, and some attempted to leave on stretchers and ambulances. Of a first group of 21 patients who left the hospital, the army said that 13 turned out to be suspected of being terrorists,” the newspaper reported. Times of Israel.
According to the Israeli military, Hamas militants had used the hospital as a hideout after their operational space in Jabaliya was significantly reduced and claimed to have interrogated about 950 people near the hospital, and identified about 240 as “terrorists,” some of them. which participated in the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, reports Haartez. The military said very few weapons were seized inside the hospital, “but many were found in the apartments surrounding it.”
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