DUBAI: For months, prominent Palestinian pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya had been pleading with the international community to protect medical staff and patients at the Kamal Adwan Hospital amid repeated Israeli assaults.

As one of just two functioning hospitals in northern Gaza, Kamal Adwan served as a lifeline for thousands in need of medical assistance under an Israeli siege that has blocked the delivery of food, shelter materials, and medical supplies since Oct. 5.

However, the pleas of Dr. Abu Safiya, the hospital’s director, fell silent on Dec. 27 when Israeli forces stormed the facility and detained him along with patients and other medical staff, alleging it was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold.”

Since early October 2024, Israel has intensified its siege on northern Gaza, mounting a series of operations intended to root out Hamas fighters. The raid on Kamal Adwan knocked the hospital out of action, dealing a fresh blow to northern Gaza’s already devastated healthcare system.

The following day, health officials said Israeli forces targeted Al-Awda Hospital, severely damaging the last functioning facility in northern Gaza. The hospital had been overflowing with patients after the Indonesian Hospital was reportedly put out of service earlier in the month.

On Dec. 29, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli strikes had left two facilities in Gaza City — Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital and Al-Wafaa Hospital — with significant damage.

“Hospitals have once again become battlegrounds, reminiscent of the destruction of the health system in Gaza City earlier this year,” the World Health Organization said in a statement.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using civilian hospitals for military purposes, employing patients and medical staff as human shields — a claim that the Palestinian militant group that governs Gaza has consistently denied.

In its latest raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israeli military said its troops had killed 20 “terrorists” and detained 240 others, including Dr. Abu Safiya on suspicion of being “a Hamas terrorist operative.”

On Friday, Israel confirmed it was holding Dr. Abu Safiya, but did not specify where. In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said he was “currently being investigated by Israeli security forces” as he was suspected of being a “terrorist” and for “holding a rank” in Hamas.

Israel launched its military operation in Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and saw around 250 taken hostage, including many foreign nationals.

The air and ground campaign in Gaza has caused the death of some 45,400 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, and left 108,000 wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Around 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, but a third are believed to be dead.

Kamal Adwan Hospital has been the target of around 50 recorded attacks on or near the facility since early October 2024, according to the WHO.

The latest raid left the hospital’s laboratory, surgical unit, engineering and maintenance department, operating theater, and medical store severely damaged by fire.

Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, denied troops had entered the facility or started the fire.

“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. A preliminary investigation had found “no connection” between the military operation and the fire, he added.

Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention has sparked global outcry as UN agencies, rights groups, and non-governmental organizations demanded his immediate release.

A viral image of Dr. Abu Safiya, believed to depict his final moments before his arrest, shows him walking alone, dressed in his white lab coat, among the rubble of a devastated street towards Israeli tanks.

Healthcare workers around the world joined an online solidarity campaign, prompting the launch of a petition calling on the US to pressure Israel to release Dr. Abu Safiya and stop targeting hospitals, medical staff, and patients.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, urged global medical professionals to cut ties with Israel in protest at the arrest.

“For each Palestinian life that should and could have been saved in Gaza, we have been put to the test. And we have failed, over and over,” she posted on X. “We must not fail again. All of us must do all we can to save Dr. Abu Safiya.”

According to the Palestinian health ministry, more than 1,000 medical workers have been killed and more than 300 detained since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, 2023, while some 130 ambulances have been knocked out of action.

The whereabouts of Dr. Abu Safiya and his staff remains unknown, although several released detainees told CNN he was being held at the Sde Teiman military base — a facility close to the Gaza border notorious for allegations of abuse, which Israel denies.

Dr. Abu Safiya rose to prominence for documenting the challenges facing healthcare professionals in Gaza since the war began, including shortages of staff and medical supplies.

In an earlier raid on Oct. 25, he was briefly detained and questioned after refusing multiple orders to leave Kamal Adwan Hospital. The Israeli army had stormed the facility, detained many patients and 57 hospital staff, according to Gaza health authorities.

During that Israeli operation, Dr. Abu Safiya’s 15-year-old son was reportedly killed in a drone strike at the hospital gate. Dr. Abu Safiya insisted on continuing to tend to his patients, and continued to do so even after he was wounded in an attack on Nov. 23.

“We are suffering from a severe shortage of doctors, especially surgeons,” he said at the time. “Right now, we only have pediatricians — it is a huge challenge to work under these circumstances.”

On Dec. 31, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report detailing the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare facilities. The report found that 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities had suffered 136 strikes between Oct. 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024.

The UN warned that the strikes caused “significant damage to, if not the complete destruction of, civilian infrastructure,” and pushed the healthcare system in the Palestinian territory to the “brink of total collapse.”

Just 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, according to the WHO’s latest figures.

In its report, the UN labeled Israel’s claim that Gaza’s hospitals are being used by Hamas for military purposes as “vague” and “insufficient.”

A day earlier, UN human rights experts said the backing of allies has enabled Israel to continue committing “genocidal acts” and defying international law. They stressed that Israel needed to be held accountable for “inflicting maximum suffering” on Palestinian civilians, particularly in northern Gaza.

They noted the siege, “coupled with expanding evacuation orders, appears intended to permanently displace the local population as a precursor to Gaza’s annexation.”

Israel said the siege was aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping.

As ceasefire talks continue, the Palestinian health ministry has called on the international community to intervene to protect healthcare professionals, secure the release of detainees, and facilitate a safe environment in which the sick and injured can receive treatment.

The closure of Kamal Adwan Hospital leaves a population of some 75,000 Palestinians in the north without access to medical care — a crisis exacerbated by bitter winter conditions and shortages of food, medicine, and shelter.

More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have been repeatedly displaced, according to aid agencies, with many now enduring winter temperatures in squalid tent camps, often flooded by heavy rain, in south and central Gaza.

For those who have remained in northern Gaza, hospitals are no longer an option for shelter.

“As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap,” Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, said in a statement.

Health officials say the loss of Kamal Adwan Hospital, in particular, will leave civilians in northern Gaza without treatment at the very moment they are most vulnerable.

In a post on X, Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta said hypothermia, malnutrition, and injury had become the triad of death.

“This means that people will die of hypothermia at higher temperatures, will starve to death much quicker, and will succumb to less severe wounds.”

GAZA CITY: The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Monday that 49 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll of the war to 45,854.
The ministry also said in a statement that at least 109,139 people had been wounded in nearly 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, triggered by the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack.
Also on Monday, the UN World Food Programme said that Israeli forces opened fire on its convoy in Gaza on Jan. 5 in an incident it described as “horrifying.”
The agency said that its convoy of three vehicles carrying eight staff members was struck by 16 bullets near the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, causing no injuries.
The WFP statement said the convoy was clearly marked and had received prior security clearances from Israeli authorities.
Israeli forces kept up their bombardment of Gaza on Monday, with the territory’s civil defense agency reporting 13 people killed in strikes in the territory.
Mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and the US have been working for months to strike a deal to end the fighting in Gaza, but both warring sides have accused the other of derailing the negotiations.
Israel said on Monday that Hamas had yet to clarify whether 34 hostages it claimed it was ready to free were dead or alive, throwing doubt on the group’s assertion that it needed time to ascertain their fate.
The offer from Hamas came as Israel continued to pound the Gaza Strip, where rescuers said 13 people were killed on Monday.
In recent days, mediators have resumed indirect talks, and a senior Hamas official said late on Sunday that the group was prepared to release an initial batch of captives but would need “a week of calm” to determine whether they were still alive.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer, however, rejected that claim on Monday.
“They know precisely who is alive and who is dead. They know precisely where the hostages are,” Mencer told journalists in an online briefing. “Gaza is a very small place. Hamas know exactly where they are.”
In an earlier statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had not received any confirmation or comment from Hamas regarding the “status of the hostages,” adding those slated for inclusion were part of a list “originally given by Israel to the mediators” last year. The Hamas official had also said the group came from a list presented by Israel and would include all the women, children, elderly, and sick captives still held in Gaza.
“Hamas has agreed to release the 34 prisoners, whether alive or dead,” the official said, but the group needed time “to communicate with the captors and identify those who are alive and those who are dead.”
On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced confidence that a ceasefire deal would come together, but possibly after President Joe Biden leaves office on Jan.20.
“If we don’t get it across the finish line in the next two weeks, I’m confident that it will get its completion at some point, hopefully, sooner rather than later,” Blinken said on a visit to Seoul.
President-elect Donald Trump, who takes over on Jan. 20, has vowed even stronger support for Israel and has warned Hamas of “hell to pay” if it does not free the hostages.
Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper reported Monday that negotiations with Hamas “are approaching a crossroads, and Israeli decision-makers are optimistic that a deal can be finalized within the next few days.”
Some Israeli news websites reported that the chief of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, was joining the country’s negotiators in Doha.