A wounded Palestinian receives medical attention at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, after patients were transported from the Kamal Adwan Hospital, on Dec. 28, 2024. (Credit: Omar al-Qattaa/AFP)
The Israeli army announced on Sunday that it will not allow northern Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital — recently besieged, severely damaged and emptied of its patients and staff — to resume its activities, Haaretz reported. The army said that it has "better oversight" of activities within the nearby Indonesian Hospital, to where almost all medical operations at the Kamal Adwan Hospital have been transferred.
On Friday, Israeli forces stormed the hospital and arrested over 240 people, including the hospital’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiyeh, with whom contact has been lost since the raid and who reportedly remains in detention. Al Jazeera reported, citing medical sources, that several hospital staff members were burned to death in the fires set by Israel's military in the facility, which it alleged was a "key stronghold for terrorist organizations"
In a separate statement on Sunday, Israel's military said that its forces had killed approximately 20 Palestinian militants in the Kamal Adwan raid, calling it one of its "largest operations" conducted in the territory. "This is one of the largest operations to apprehend terrorists conducted in a single location since the beginning of the war," the statement read.
"Field investigators from Unit 504 directed the apprehension process and conducted hundreds of field interrogations to transfer 240 terrorists belonging to the Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorist organizations for further investigation in Israeli territory." When asked if Abu Safiyeh had been transferred to Israeli territory for further questioning, the military did not offer an immediate comment, AFP reports. Some of the staff freed by the army late on Friday reported that Abu Safiyeh had been beaten by the soldiers.
With the closure of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia has effectively become the only major functioning hospital north of Gaza City. The Indonesian Hospital also sustained damage from Israeli military operations last week, but continues to function.
Fifteen critical patients, 50 caregivers and 20 health workers were transferred Friday to Indonesian Hospital, the Gaza Health Ministry announced on Saturday, describing the Indonesian Hospital as "destroyed and non-functional," and medics were prevented from joining them there.
"The movement and treatment of these critical patients under such conditions pose grave risks to their survival," the World Health Organization said, adding that "an urgent WHO mission to Indonesian Hospital is being planned for [Sunday] to safely move patients to southern Gaza for continued care."
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