IDF completes raid on north Gaza hospital, says some 240 terror suspects arrested

The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had completed an operation against Hamas at northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding area.

Some 240 suspected terror operatives were detained, including the medical center’s director and 15 terrorists who participated in the October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces, which last operated against Hamas at Kamal Adwan in October, said the operation was launched because the hospital had “once again become a key stronghold for terrorist organizations and continues to be used as a hideout for terrorist operatives.”

The army said the hospital was still used by Hamas “despite repeated calls to refrain from allowing [terror operatives] to exploit hospitals for military activities.”

The operation was led by the IDF’s 162nd Division. At the start of the raid, the IDF said troops of the 401st Armored Brigade surrounded the hospital, detained several terror operatives, and killed additional gunmen.

Members of the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit then carried out “precise activities” inside the hospital, during which they located and captured weapons, including grenades, handguns, ammunition, and other military equipment, according to the IDF.

The Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit operates at northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, in a video released by the IDF on December 28, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Over 240 members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others suspected of being members of terror groups were detained amid the operation, the military said.

The IDF said some of the terror operatives “tried to impersonate patients and medical staff, and some tried to escape in ambulances.”

Among those detained was the director of Kamal Adwan, Hussam Abu Safiya, who the IDF said is suspected of being a Hamas operative.

The Hamas-run health ministry also said Abu Safiya was detained, but a statement posted to his Instagram account said, “All that is being circulated about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya being arrested is false news,” adding, “thank God he is fine, but the communications and network are very bad.”

At least 15 of those arrested at the hospital and the surrounding area participated in the October 7 onslaught, according to the military. Several members of Hamas’s engineering and anti-tank forces were also arrested in the operation.

The suspects were questioned by field interrogators from the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 and the Shin Bet security agency. The IDF said many admitted to interrogators that they had participated in “terror activity” in the hospital area.

During the operation, the military said operatives launched RPGs and anti-tank projectiles at troops from an area near the hospital, and attempted other attacks.

There were no injuries among the Israeli forces, and the operatives behind the attacks were killed, the IDF said. It added that a drone strike eliminated a cell of gunmen whose members tried to flee the area.

Before launching the operation, the IDF said it enabled the evacuation of 350 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel to other hospitals, in an effort coordinated by the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

In the weeks prior to the operation, “tens of thousands of liters of fuel, food, and medical supplies for the essential functioning of the hospital” were delivered to Kamal Adwan.

During the raid itself, the IDF said another 95 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where 5,000 liters of fuel, two generators, and medical equipment were delivered “to maintain and operate essential systems in the hospital.”

Hundreds of Palestinian civilians also left the hospital area “via defined evacuation routes,” the military added.

The IDF denied that Israeli troops had set fire to the hospital as claimed by Hamas.

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani pushed back on Hamas’s account. “While IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control,” he said, adding that a preliminary investigation had found “no connection” between military activity and the fire.

“Running with unsubstantiated reports on the cause of this fire shows nothing but questionable journalistic integrity,” said Shoshani.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry had accused Israeli troops of setting fires in several parts of Kamal Adwan, including the lab and surgery department, and said that 25 patients and 60 health workers remained in the hospital.

The ministry also said Israeli troops had entered the hospital, taken staff and patients outside and forced them to strip in winter weather.

Unverified video circulating on social media purported to show patients and staff being marched outside in front of IDF tanks.

BREAKING: The Israeli occupation military has stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, forcing doctors and patients to walk on foot to the southern part of the region. pic.twitter.com/HCLLXAHx1N

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 27, 2024

The IDF last operated at the Kamal Adwan facility in late October, detaining dozens of terror operatives and locating and destroying weapons and terror infrastructure.

At the time, the military released footage from the interrogation of a detained individual, who identified himself as a driver and paramedic for Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.

He alleged in the footage that Hamas was using ambulances at the hospital to move operatives around.

“Hamas military operatives are present. They are in the courtyards, at the gates of the buildings, in the offices,” he said when asked about the terror group’s operations around Kamal Adwan.

“They operate ambulances to transport their wounded military operatives and to transport them for their missions,” he went on. “This is instead of using the ambulances for the benefit of civilians.”

“We, the public in the northern Gaza Strip, are sick of this situation,” he said when asked if he had anything more to add. “We have had enough; they [Hamas] are stationed in the hospitals, stationed in the schools.”

Hamas has fought from within hospitals throughout the war and even periodically hid some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7 inside them. International law generally prohibits targeting hospitals during wartime, but hospitals can lose this protection if used for military purposes.

Since October, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, stating its goal is to prevent Hamas from regrouping in the area.

Israel had ordered civilians to evacuate the area amid preparations to invade Gaza in October 2023 in response to the Hamas onslaught, which saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.