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Fears were growing on Monday for the safety of staff detained at Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital after the Israeli military stormed the facility and arrested around 240 people, including its director Dr Hussam Abu Safia, whose detention has sparked widespread criticism.
The Friday night raid on the hospital in Beit Lahia put the last major health facility in northern Gaza out of service, the World Health Organisation has said. The WHO on Monday called for the release of Dr Hussam, who Israel accuses of being a Hamas militant. "His whereabouts are unknown. We call for his immediate release," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X.
Israel's military said it killed about 20 Palestinian militants in the raid and apprehended 240 "terrorists", calling it one of its largest operations in the territory. Dr Hussam's plight has garnered widespread sympathy in Gaza, where he commands respect for persevering through difficult conditions since Israel launched its war on the enclave in October last year.
He has lost a son to the violence as well as his home and has sustained several injuries during Israeli attacks on the hospital. Witnesses to the raid on Kamal Adwan told The National on Monday that Dr Hussam had been unfairly targeted and mistreated. His other son, Idris Abu Safia, said the doctor was forced to strip naked in freezing conditions and physically assaulted.
“Dr Hussam was insulted, humiliated, and ultimately detained. They showed no regard for his position or his contributions,” said a nurse from the hospital who requested anonymity.
Born and raised in Gaza, Dr Hussam received his medical education in Kazakhstan, where he specialised in paediatrics. For years he has served at hospitals in the enclave's north, earning a reputation as a skilled medic with a gentle demeanour, Gazans told The National. He chose to remain at the hospital after the war broke out, despite threats of arrest from Israel.
Patients being treated at Kamal Adwan when the Israelis stormed the hospital on Friday were forcibly taken to smaller medical facilities in Gaza city. The raid was the culmination of a weeks-long military siege of the compound, where Israel says militants are sheltering.
Israa Hassouna, a witness who was with her injured brother at Kamal Adwan, said women were forced out of the hospital at gunpoint. “Some were taken to Al Fakhoura [school], while others were sent to the Indonesian Hospital,” she said. Families begged to stay with the patients but were separated, she added.
Ms Hassouna said she waited hours to be told her brother had been taken to Indonesian Hospital, where she said conditions were dire. “There were no basic necessities – no food, no proper medical supplies. Patients like my brother were brought in by ambulance, but there were barely any nurses, and the hospital had been heavily damaged in previous attacks.”
A WHO delegation later arrived and facilitated an evacuation to Gaza city, she added. “The freezing weather made everything worse. By the time we reached Al Shifa Hospital, everyone’s condition had deteriorated further. The patients had been interrogated by the army and deprived of food and warmth.”
The family of Dr Hussam, along with journalists and activists, have launched a media campaign for his release. “There are testimonies from released detainees about the torture he endured,” his son Idris said. “The occupation tries to deny it, but the truth is evident in the accounts of those who witnessed it first-hand. My father is the director of a civilian hospital, someone who poses no threat to anyone."
