Army says it nabbed hundreds of terror suspects at northern Gaza hospital, capping Jabalia offensive

Following the Israeli military raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital, army sources indicate that the IDF is close to completing its operations in northern Gaza’s Jabalia.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is being described by the IDF as “Hamas’s last bastion in Jabalia,” after hundreds of terror operatives allegedly used the medical facility as a shelter from Israeli strikes. According to the military, the terror operatives had returned to Kamal Adwan after the IDF last operated in the medical center in late October.

There is no way to verify the military’s claims.

The IDF has been operating in the Jabalia area since early October, facing relatively fierce resistance by remaining Hamas cells in the area, military sources say.

Before launching the operation, the IDF says 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.

The army says drone strikes killed the members of two Hamas cells who tried to run away the hospital as troops moved in. Within an hour, more civilians and patients fled the area under IDF instructions, the army says.

Patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were taken to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where the IDF says it delivered fuel, generators, and other medical equipment from Kamal Adwan.

The army says it collared 240 terror suspects while screening nearly 950 people who passed through an army checkpoint outside the hospital. According to the IDF, among the 240 were at least 15 participated in the October 7, 2023, onslaught in Israel, and several others considered to be prominent commanders in Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Some terror operatives posed as medical staff and patients, and some tried to leave in stretchers and ambulances, the army says.

The director of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, was also detained. The IDF says he is suspected of being a Hamas operative.

The IDF says that the Kamal Radwan raid marks one of the largest single arrest operations in Gaza since the beginning of the war.

The IDF acknowledges that few weapons were found in the hospital itself, but says that numerous weapons were located and seized in apartments surrounding Kamal Adwan, which were used by Hamas as fighting positions, some of which were booby-trapped.

During the operation, the military says RPGs were fired at an armored personnel carrier from an area near the hospital, though there were no casualties.

In all, the IDF says it killed 19 terror operatives during the fighting around the hospital. Hamas authorities have claimed that around 50 Palestinians were killed, including medical staff at the hospital.

The IDF says it did not fire directly at the hospital, did not target any medical staff, and is unaware of civilian casualties in the operation.

The IDF says it has no plans to demolish the now-defunct medical facility following the raid.