Tel Aviv, Dec 28, (dpa/GNA) – The Israeli military says it has captured 240 suspected militants from the Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, during the storming of a hospital in northern Gaza.
Among those arrested is the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, Hussam Abu Safiya, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Saturday. He is suspected of being a Hamas “terror cadre,” the IDF added.
Israeli forces attacked the hospital on Friday morning, with the IDF saying that a Hamas command centre was active inside it. According to the IDF, the operation has now ended.
In the hospital and the surrounding area, 240 fighters from the Islamist Hamas and its ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were captured, the IDF said, alleging that some had disguised themselves as patients.
The information could not be independently verified.
While the IDF said they were sparing civilians, patients and hospital staff and acting in accordance with international law, medical staff in Gaza said there were several casualties during the operation.
A nurse who has since been released, reported on the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera that Israeli soldiers had beaten the prisoners with sticks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on X that the Kamal Adwan hospital, the last major health facility in the north of the coastal territory, had been shut down during the operation.
It said Israel’s “systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care.”
GNA