Israeli forces have raided the last functioning Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, arresting the hospital's director and other staff and forcibly vacating it, doctors said.
The World Health Organization said Kamal Adwan Hospital is "now empty" and that some of the remaining patients - including the critically ill - have been transferred to an Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, along with caregivers and health workers. The raid also shut down the last hospital in northern Gaza.
The whereabouts of Kamal Adwan's director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, and other staff are unclear, friends and colleagues told CNN.
Rawia al-Batsh, a nurse at Kamal Adwan Hospital, told CNN that "we don't know the fate of Dr. Hussam. He was threatened by the army as soon as he arrived at the hospital."
The Israeli military admitted on Saturday that it had detained Dr Abu Safia and said he was a "suspected Hamas terrorist operative."
Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan Hospital, told the BBC that the army had given the administration 15 minutes to evacuate patients and staff from their hospital at around 7am on Friday.
He said Israeli soldiers later entered the hospital and evacuated the remaining patients.
The Israeli military said on Friday afternoon that it was conducting a raid on the hospital area, describing it as a "Hamas stronghold."
The BBC wrote that before the raid began, Israeli soldiers had arranged for civilians, patients and medical staff to be safely evacuated from the hospital. However, the army did not say where the patients would be taken.
Dr Sabbah said: "It is dangerous because many patients are in comas. They need ventilation machines. It is very dangerous to move dying patients.
“If the army wants to evacuate these patients, they will need specialized vehicles,” he said.
Shortly afterwards, Gaza’s deputy health minister, Yousef Abu-al-Rish, told the BBC that “patients in critical condition have been taken to a hospital in Indonesia.”
“It’s not exactly a hospital,” he said. “It’s a shelter. It’s not ready for patients.”
“According to initial investigations, several important sections of the hospital were severely burned during the operation,” Nadav Shoshani, the international spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), told X-Post on Friday evening.
“According to initial investigations, several important sections of the hospital were severely burned during the operation,” he said.
“Initial investigations have not found any connection to IDF activity,” he said, adding that the fire broke out when IDF soldiers were not inside the hospital.
Hours earlier, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital said that about 50 people, including five medical staff, had been killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting the area around the hospital.
Hussam Abu Safia's statement said that Israeli warplanes targeted a building opposite the hospital, killing a pediatrician and a lab technician and their families.
The facility has come under frequent Israeli fire in recent months, and its closure has exacerbated a dire humanitarian situation in northern Gaza.
