IDF launches new raid on north Gaza hospital, saying Hamas operatives returned
Kamal Adwan Hospital director says five staff members killed in Israeli strike on facility, which military says is ‘terrorist stronghold’; IDF says officer died Thursday in clash
The Israel Defense Forces said Friday that its forces had launched a new operation at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza after identifying that Hamas operatives had returned to the area.
“The Kamal Adwan Hospital serves as a Hamas terrorist stronghold in northern Gaza, from which terrorists have been operating throughout the war,” the statement said.
The IDF, which last operated against Hamas at the hospital in October, said the facility had “once again become a key stronghold for terrorist organizations and continues to be used as a hideout for terrorist operatives.”
Since Friday morning, troops of the 401st Armored Brigade were conducting “targeted operations in the area while mitigating harm to uninvolved civilians, patients, and medical personnel,” according to the IDF.
The IDF said it “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical personnel prior to the operation” to mitigate civilian harm. The civilians were taken to other hospitals in Gaza in an effort coordinated by the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) with local health officials and international organizations, the military said.
“The IDF and COGAT continue to make extensive efforts to enable patients to continue receiving care in other hospitals by facilitating the evacuation of patients from the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the ongoing transfer of supplies, food and fuel to the area, and the restoration of operations of hospitals in the area, while maintaining ongoing communication with hospital officials,” the army added.
According to Munir Al-Bursh, the director of the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, the IDF ordered 350 people to leave Kamal Adwan for a nearby school sheltering displaced families. They included 75 patients, their companions, and 185 medical staff.
Youssef Abu El-Rish, the deputy Gaza health minister, said soldiers were transferring patients and medical staff to the Indonesian Hospital, which had already been put out of operation due to heavy damage resulting from Israeli fire a day earlier.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said Friday that contact with the hospital’s staff had been lost. Abu El-Rish claimed Israeli forces had set fire to the hospital’s surgical department, a laboratory and a storage facility — assertions denied by the IDF.
The IDF later issued a statement saying there was a small fire in an empty building inside the hospital, but it was under control. “Regarding claims that the fire was caused by IDF gunfire, the IDF is currently unaware of any such incident,” the military said.
On Thursday, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, the hospital’s director, said that five staff members had been killed in an Israeli strike. The IDF said it was unaware of such a strike and that the report claiming staff members’ deaths would be examined.
In recent days, Safiyeh repeatedly raised concerns about the hospital’s situation, accusing Israeli forces of targeting the facility.
“The world must understand that our hospital is being targeted with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the people inside,” he said in a statement on Monday.
The World Health Organization has described conditions at Kamal Adwan Hospital as “appalling” and said it was operating at a “minimum” level.
Asked to comment on the latest developments at Kamal Adwan Hospital, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby reiterated Washington’s stance against hospitals being scenes of active combat while noting that Hamas has continued to fight from inside of them.
Since October 6, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, stating its goal is to prevent Hamas terrorists from regrouping in the region.
Hamas has fought from within hospitals throughout the war and even periodically hid some of the Israeli hostages inside. International law prohibits targeting hospitals during wartime, but hospitals can lose this protection if they are being used for military purposes.
The IDF has repeatedly returned to areas that it previously announced were cleared of Hamas fighters. The US has long warned that failure to advance a viable alternative to Hamas would allow the terror group to regroup in a never-ending game of wack-a-mole.
The international community has pushed Israel to allow the Palestinian Authority to play a role in the management of Gaza to prevent Hamas from filling power vacuums briefly created by the IDF’s operations against the terror group.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea outright, likening the PA to Hamas, amid threats from far-right coalition members to collapse his government if Ramallah is given a foothold in Gaza.
The war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 45,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas.
Indirect talks aimed at freeing the 100 hostages remaining in Gaza appeared this week to be inching toward a long-elusive agreement, but both sides accused each other on Wednesday of backtracking on previous commitments and torpedoing the negotiations.
Soldier killed in clashes
Separately on Friday, the IDF announced that the probe into the death of Cpt. (res.) Amit Levi in central Gaza a day earlier determined that he was killed during clashes with terror operatives.
Levi, 35, a team commander in the 551st Reserve Paratroopers Brigade’s 6551st Battalion, was leading his troops to scan a building that had been used by operatives, where explosives had been planted. Levi’s family was updated by the IDF on the circumstances of his death, the army added.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 393. The toll includes a police officer killed in a hostage rescue mission and a Defense Ministry civilian contractor.
Rare rocket fired at Sderot
The IDF said a rocket launched from the northern Gaza Strip struck an open area near Sderot on Friday afternoon.
Sirens sounded in the border community of Nir Am during the attack, and there were no reports of injuries or major damage.
While Hamas barraged Israel with thousands of rockets in the beginning of the war, the terror group’s arsenal seems to have largely been depleted, making such occurrences increasingly rare.
