Israel detains director of one of last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, Palestinians say

Palestinians carry white sacks containing the bodies of those killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes on the Maghazi refugee camp, at Al-Aqsa Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel's army detained the director of one of northern Gaza 's last functioning hospitals as overnight strikes in the territory killed nine people, including children, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday.

Gaza's Health Ministry said Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested by Israeli forces Friday along with dozens of other staff and taken to an interrogation center. The ministry said Israeli troops stormed the hospital and forced many staff and patients outside and told them to strip in winter weather, according to the ministry.

Israel’s army didn’t respond to questions about the director. On Friday, it denied it had entered or set fire to the hospital complex but acknowledged it had ordered people outside, and said it was conducting operations against Hamas infrastructure and militants in the area.

The military repeated claims that Hamas militants operate inside Kamal Adwan but provided no evidence. Hospital officials have denied that.

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 personnel.

MedGlobal, the humanitarian organization for which Abu Safiya worked, said 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.”

Israel’s nearly 15-month-old campaign of bombardment and ground offensives has devastated Gaza’s health sector. The World Health Organization has said the raid on Kamal Adwan has put northern Gaza's last major health facility “out of service" after growing restrictions on access, adding that “this horror must end and health care must be protected.”

The Health Ministry said conditions for Kamal Adwan patients who were relocated to the damaged Indonesian Hospital nearby — also raided in the past — were “extremely difficult.”

The war has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, and wounded more than 108,000 others, according to the Health Ministry. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

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 out 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 the militants' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which they killed around 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others. Some 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, and around a third are believed to be dead.

Israel continued attacks across Gaza on Saturday. An 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.

Men cried as the bodies, wrapped in bloodied white plastic, lay on the floor of the morgue.

The Health Ministry said Saturday that 48 people had been killed in the past 24 hours by Israeli fire.

Meanwhile, Israel said its troops had begun operating in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, citing intelligence that fighters and Hamas infrastructure were in the area.

Strikes also continued in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded early Saturday and the military said it intercepted a missile fired by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Israeli warplanes bombed key infrastructure in Yemen again on Thursday. The Houthis also have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea and say they won't stop until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.

Mednick reported from Jerusalem.