Israel detained the director of one of Gaza’s last functioning hospitals, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday after Israeli forces “forcibly” removed patients and staff and fires were set throughout the hospital. .
“The occupation forces arrested Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital,” the ministry said in a statement.
Fighting has raged in the areas around the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia for almost three months, and on Friday, Israeli forces stormed the hospital, the ministry said, forcing patients and staff to leave the hospital and arresting dozens as military vehicles surrounded the area.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Day X that the hospital was a Hamas stronghold and that it facilitated the “safe evacuation” of civilians out of the hospital before starting its operation.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the fire had spread to several departments of the hospital.
The NBC News team in Gaza captured a fire raging through several units on Friday, with volunteers attempting to douse the flames with buckets of water or sifting through the smoldering rubble.
Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said in X that there was no connection between the fire and IDF activity, adding that a “small fire” occurred while IDF troops were not at the hospital.
Nurses rushed to treat the injured in a wing of the hospital that was not affected by the fire, while in another section, the team witnessed the moment a child on a stretcher was declared dead.
A woman, sitting next to several shrouded bodies piled on the hospital floor, told the NBC News team the names of some of the dead: “Ehassan is 7 years old, Dinaa is 10 years old and Mohamed is 12 years old.”
“What have the children done? Why are you silent?” He said, and pleaded with Allah, “reward us for our affliction and replace it with something better.”
“Every day we say goodbye to the roses; every day we say goodbye to the bride and groom,” he said, referring to the young Gazans killed in the war.
As the temperature outside plummeted, the ministry said patients and those injured in the attack were taken to the Indonesian hospital, which was already destroyed and out of service. before the patients arrived.
“They are in a very miserable and difficult situation, without water, without electricity, without blankets, without food and without supplies,” the Ministry of Health said.
In video geolocated by NBC News in the area around the hospital, two dozen men, naked and minimally clad, could be seen walking in a line with their hands raised Friday.
Flanked by Israeli tanks, the men carried some belongings. The surrounding buildings were in ruins.
It is unclear whether the men were hospital staff members.
A video posted on Abu Safia’s social media account and verified by NBC News showed a quadcopter dropping a bomb just meters from the hospital. The bomb exploded with a loud bang, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
Israeli forces have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure, including its health system, since October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorist attacks killed 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 people hostage, according to Israeli officials.
The World Health Organization said it was “horrified” by the Israeli incursion, adding in a statement Saturday that the forcible transfer of the patients “poses serious risks to their survival.” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the attack in a statement on Friday.
With the destruction of Kamal Adwan, the Palestinian Ministry of Health noted that the three public hospitals in northern Gaza, including the Beit Hanoun hospital and the Indonesian hospital, are now out of service.
The attack on the hospital and the transfers followed an attack on a building opposite the hospital on Thursday, which killed almost 50 people, including five medical staff, according to the Ministry of Health.
The Israel Defense Forces, in a statement to NBC News, said it was targeting the hospital after receiving information about the “presence of terrorist infrastructure and agents carrying out terrorist activities” inside. He did not provide evidence.
Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan in recent weeks have killed several doctors and patients. In October, an independent United Nations commission accused Israel of war crimes and carrying out a “concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s health system.”
Shortly after Friday’s attack, Gaza’s Health Ministry said contact with Abu Safia had been “cut off.”
He said separately that nearly 350 people from the hospital had been detained by Israeli forces, including 180 medical staff and 75 wounded patients and their families.
