Israeli forces arrested Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza Strip, along with 240 others on Saturday, December 28, after setting the facility on fire.
Taking to X, Israeli Defese Forces (IDF) said,”The director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, who is suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative, was also taken in for questioning.”
Taking to Instagram, photographer Mohannad al-Muqayed shared the last photo of Abu Safiyea before his arrest by Israeli forces.
In the photo Abu Safiya is seen going alone towards two Israeli tanks dressed in medical gear and a white coat.
“Dr Hussem Abu Safiyeh was arrested by the Israeli military soon after this photo was taken. His whereabouts are not known. He was the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza until it was forcibly evacuated by Israel,” Agnes Callamard, a UN special rapporteur, wrote on X.
This arrest was made after the Israeli forces began a military operation in the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding area on Friday, December 27. As a result, the hospital’s medical staff, patients, and wounded were forcibly evacuated, some of them were arrested, and large portions of its buildings were set on fire, even though many of them were inside.
The operation resulted in the closure of the last major hospital in the northern governorate, according to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.
Hours before announcing the operation, the forces conducted massive bombing operations in the governorate, launching intense and violent air strikes around the hospital, one of which resulted in the deaths of over 50 Palestinians in a building opposite the hospital headquarters.
The Israeli forces has been carrying out genocide and ethnic cleansing in the northern governorate for over two months, committing massacres, killing residents, forcing them to flee, and arresting hundreds.
Israel launched a massive ground offensive in northern Gaza on October 5 to prevent Hamas’ regrouping, while Palestinians accuse Israel of occupying and forcibly displaced its residents.
Israel initiated the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Hamas-led resistance groups in response to increased Palestinian violence.
The Israeli regime’s brutal assault on Gaza has resulted in the deaths of 45,736 Palestinians, primarily women and children, and injured 108,038 others, with thousands more presumed dead.
