Isreal Arrests Hospital Director, Other Staff

Israel arrested a hospital director in a raid that closed the last major functioning health facility in northern Gaza, with its forces also accused of ordering patients to strip in the streets.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is “now empty” after the remaining patients – some of them critically ill – along with caregivers and health workers were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, the World Health Organization said.

The facility has come under frequent Israeli fire in recent months and its closure exacerbates a dire humanitarian situation in northern Gaza.

The whereabouts of Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and other staff are unclear, friends and colleagues say.

“We do not know the fate of Dr. Hussam. He was actually threatened by the army as soon as they arrived at the hospital,” a nurse from Kamal Adwan Hospital, Rawiya Al Batsh, told CNN.

The Israeli militaryķ acknowledged Saturday it had detained Dr. Abu Safiya, saying he was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it raided the area of the hospital and detained at least 240 “Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists,” alleging the facility was being used as a “Hamas terror stronghold.”

Israeli forces launched a renewed aerial and ground incursion in several parts of northern Gaza in early October this year, saying they were targeting a resurgent Hamas presence there. The onslaught has razed streets to carpets of debris, killed entire families, and severely depleted food, water and medical stocks.

The IDF said it had helped evacuate staff and patients ahead of the operation, later adding that “an additional 95 patients, caregivers and medical personnel” were taken to the Indonesian Hospital “to maintain and operate essential systems.”

CNN/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma