By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maytaal Angel
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli forces detained dozens of medical staff from a north Gaza hospital they raided on Friday, the enclave’s Health Ministry said.
The Israeli military raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya on Friday, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to evacuate and detaining medical staff including the facility’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya.
The Health Ministry said it was not clear what was happening to Abu Safiya, adding it was concerned about his well-being after some of the staff freed by the army late on Friday reported that he was beaten up by soldiers.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the detainees.
The raid on the hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in north Gaza out of service, the World Health Organisation said in a post on X.
Some patients were evacuated to the Indonesian Hospital, which is not in service, and medics were prevented from joining them there, the Health Ministry said. Some others were transferred to another hospital in the southern Gaza Strip.
Some of the freed medical staff arrived at the Al-Ahly Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City.
The Israeli military said on Friday that Hamas fighters had operated from Kamal Adwan Hospital throughout the 15-month-old war and had made the site a key stronghold. Hamas dismissed this as “lies”, saying there were no fighters in the hospital.
The Gaza Health Ministry also said Israeli strikes across the enclave killed 18 Palestinians on Saturday, at least nine of them in a house in Maghazi camp in central Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had begun operating overnight against targets in the Beit Hanoun area in northern Gaza. “Troops are enabling civilians still in the area to move away for their own safety,” it said.
In the past few months Israeli forces have pushed people out and razed much of the area around the northern towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
Palestinians have accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing by depopulating those areas to create a buffer zone. Israel denies it is doing this, saying it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping in these areas.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas, which previously controlled Gaza, has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, according to health officials in the enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.