Israel’s army detained the director of one of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals as overnight strikes elsewhere in the territory killed nine people, including children, Palestinian medical officials said on Saturday. Israel’s military alleged that Hamas militants were using the facility and said more than 240 people were detained.
Israel’s military on Saturday confirmed it detained the hospital director for questioning and called him a suspected Hamas operative while providing no evidence. It said it encircled the hospital and special forces entered and found weapons in the area. It said militants fired on its forces and they were “eliminated”. An Israeli military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, later told journalists that most of those detained are Hamas operatives.
On Friday, the military denied it had entered or set fire to the hospital complex but acknowledged it had ordered people outside. The military repeated claims that Hamas militants operate inside Kamal Adwan, which hospital officials have denied.
The hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive in largely isolated northern Gaza against Hamas fighters it says have regrouped. The health ministry said a strike on the hospital earlier this week killed five medical staff.
MedGlobal, the humanitarian organisation for which Abu Safiya worked, said on Friday it was gravely concerned about him. It said the incident follows the October detention of five other staff, calling it an “alarming and egregious pattern of targeting medical personnel and spaces”.