GAZA: An Israeli military raid targeting Hamas militants has forced a major hospital in northern Gaza out of service and led to the detention of its director, the WHO and health officials said Saturday.
The assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital has rendered the facility “useless,” further worsening Gaza’s severe health crisis, the Palestinian territory’s health officials said.
The World Health Organization said the operation had put the “last major health facility in north Gaza out of service.”
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” it added in a statement on X.
The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including some on ventilators, reportedly remained in the hospital.
Patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed, non-functioning Indonesian Hospital, the UN health agency said, adding it was “deeply concerned for their safety.”
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry reported that Israeli forces had detained Kamal Adwan’s director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, along with several medical staff members.
AFP was unable to independently verify whether Abu Safiyeh had been detained, but multiple attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Abu Safiyeh was held alongside its north Gaza chief, Ahmed Hassan Al-Kahlout.
The Israeli military did not comment on the detentions.
One of the Gazans evacuated from the hospital, who asked to be identified only as Mohammad for security reasons, told AFP some evacuees were interrogated about Hamas.
“As we began to exit, the army asked all young men to take off their clothes and walk outside the hospital,” said Mohammad, whose brother was a patient there.
“They (soldiers) took tens of young men, as well as physicians and patients, to an unknown place... The young men were interrogated, they were asked about resistance fighters, Hamas and weapons.”
Ammar Al-Barsh, a resident of Jabalia where the military has focused its assault in recent weeks, said the raid on Kamal Adwan and its environs had left dozens of homes in the area in ruins.
“The situation is catastrophic, there is no medical service, no ambulances and no civil defense in the north,” Barsh, 50, told AFP.
The army “continues to raid the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding houses, and we hear gunfire from Israeli drones and artillery shelling,” he added.
In the days leading up to the raid, Abu Safiyeh had repeatedly warned about the hospital’s precarious situation, accusing Israeli forces of targeting the facility.
On Monday, he issued a statement accusing Israel of targeting the hospital “with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the people inside.”
Since October 6, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, saying its goal is to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.
The military said Friday that it was acting on intelligence regarding “terrorist infrastructure and operatives” in the hospital’s vicinity.
Before initiating the latest operation near the hospital, the military said its troops had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical personnel.”
Hamas has denied claims its operatives were present at the hospital.
“The enemy’s lies about the hospital aim to justify the heinous crime committed by the occupation army today, involving the evacuation and burning of all hospital departments as part of a plan for extermination and forced displacement,” Hamas said in a statement.
Gaza’s health ministry had earlier quoted Abu Safiyeh reporting that the military had “set on fire all surgery departments of the hospital.”
“There are a large number of injuries among the medical team.”
Iran, which backs Hamas, “strongly condemned the brutal attack,” with a foreign ministry statement calling it “the latest example of war crimes, crimes against humanity, (and) gross violations of international law and norms.”
The Israeli military has regularly accused Hamas of using hospitals as command and control centers for attacks against its forces throughout the war.
Hamas has denied the accusations.
“This raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital comes after escalating restrictions on access for WHO and partners, and repeated attacks on or near the facility since early October,” the WHO said.
“The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care.”
Meanwhile, Hamas’s media center reported “massive Israeli air and artillery strikes in Beit Hanoun,” in northern Gaza .
The Israeli military says it has killed hundreds of militants since the stepped-up assault in northern Gaza began on October 6, while rescuers in the area say thousands of civilians have died in the sweeping offensive.
Gaza civil defense also reported that a separate Israeli strike in central Gaza killed at least nine Palestinians on Saturday.
The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,484 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Gaza hospital director detained after Israeli raid
https://arab.news/8ep83
Gaza hospital director detained after Israeli raid
- Dozens of the medical staff from Kamal Adwan Hospital detained for interrogation
- Palestinian militant group Hamas denied its fighters were present in the hospital
Asma Assad barred from UK to seek cancer treatment
- UK foreign secretary says she is ‘not welcome’ in Britain
- Former Syrian first lady’s passport expired in 2020
LONDON: Asma Al-Assad is effectively barred from returning to the UK after her British passport expired, The Times newspaper reported.
The wife of former Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad will not be able to return to her birthplace, London, despite reports that she is critically ill with leukemia.
The 49-year-old has been given a 50-50 chance of surviving the illness, according to sources.
The news comes as her father, Fawaz Akhras, a renowned cardiologist, left his work at the privately run Cromwell Hospital in Kensington, west London, to care for his daughter in Moscow, where the Assad family was granted asylum this month.
Asma Assad’s British passport expired in September 2020, and it is unclear whether UK ministers have blocked renewal or if the former first lady simply allowed the document’s validity to lapse.
Yvette Cooper, the UK home secretary, said that Assad will be prevented from entering the UK to seek treatment.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that the former investment banker is “not welcome” in Britain.
Asma Assad became Syria’s first lady in 2000 after marrying the country’s new president.
Leaked emails show that she ordered luxury goods in London and Paris during the civil war in her country, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
She played a key role in supporting her husband’s brutal crackdown on opposition protests during the Arab Spring in 2011.
Asma Assad reportedly fled to Moscow weeks before her husband this month during a lighting offensive by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
Her three children, Hafez, 23, Zein, 21, and Karim, 19, are also in Moscow, where the family own luxury properties.
Sources told The Telegraph last week that the former first lady was being kept in isolation during medical treatment.
“Asma is dying. She can’t be in the same room as anyone,” one source said.
Her father and his wife, Sahar, 75, were placed under US sanctions along with Asma’s younger brothers in 2020, although none of her family has been blacklisted by the UK.
Gaza health officials say baby dies from ‘severe cold’
- Jumaa Al-Batran died from the cold, while his twin brother remains in the intensive care unit at a local hospital
- The vast majority of the territory’s residents have been displaced since the Israeli offensive
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza health officials said that a 20-day-old baby died on Sunday from “severe cold” as the war-ravaged Palestinian territory grapples with winter weather.
Jumaa Al-Batran died from the cold, while his twin brother remains in the intensive care unit at a local hospital, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said in a statement.
Marwan Al-Hamas, head of field hospitals in Gaza, confirmed the death. He said it brought to five the total number of children “who have died due to severe cold” in recent weeks.
“There is no electricity. The water is cold and there is no gas, heating or food,” said Yahya Al-Batran, the father of the child.
“My children are dying in front of my eyes and nobody cares. Jumaa has died and I fear that his brother Ali may follow.”
Yahya Al-Batran said he and his wife were living in a tattered tent in the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are crammed into unsuitable tents, most of which were hastily set up in Deir el-Balah and in the southern areas of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October last year, Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have endured severe shortages of electricity, drinkable water, food and medical services.
The vast majority of the territory’s residents have been displaced at least once since the war broke out with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Tourist killed in shark attack in Egypt’s Marsa Alam resort
- There are sharks in the Red Sea but encounters with them are relatively rare
- Ministry said the attack occurred in deep water outside the designated swimming zone near the jetties in northern Marsa Alam
CAIRO: One tourist was killed and another was injured in a shark attack in Egypt’s Marsa Alam resort, the environment ministry said in a statement on Sunday without giving the nationalities of those involved.
There are sharks in the Red Sea but encounters with them are relatively rare.
The ministry said the attack occurred in deep water outside the designated swimming zone near the jetties in northern Marsa Alam, adding that swimming out from the jetties was prohibited and the jetties would be closed for two days from Monday.
Marsa Alam is an Egyptian coastal town known for its coral reefs, marine life and beaches.
The last similar incident was in June 2023 when a tiger shark killed a Russian national in Hurghada, another coastal city on the Red Sea north of Marsa Alam.
Last month a tourist boat capsized in the same area, leaving four dead and seven missing.
Sudan government rejects UN-backed famine declaration
- War between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had created famine conditions
- Both the Sudanese army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war
CAIRO: The Sudanese government rejected on Sunday a report backed by the United Nations which determined that famine had spread to five areas of the war-torn country.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) review, which UN agencies use, said last week that the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had created famine conditions for 638,000 people, with a further 8.1 million on the brink of mass starvation.
The army-aligned government “categorically rejects the IPC’s description of the situation in Sudan as a famine,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The statement called the report “essentially speculative” and accused the IPC of procedural and transparency failings.
They said the team did not have access to updated field data and had not consulted with the government’s technical team on the final version before publication.
The IPC did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
The Sudanese government, loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, has been based in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan since the capital Khartoum became a warzone in April 2023.
It has repeatedly been accused of stonewalling international efforts to assess the food security situation in the war-torn country.
The authorities have also been accused of creating bureaucratic hurdles to humanitarian work and blocking visas for foreign teams.
The International Rescue Committee said the army was “leveraging its status as the internationally recognized government (and blocking) the UN and other agencies from reaching RSF-controlled areas.”
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted over 12 million people, including millions who face dire food insecurity in army-controlled areas.
Across the country, more than 24.6 million people — around half the population — face high levels of acute food insecurity.
Egypt tests new extension of the Suez Canal
- Two ships used the new extension on Saturday, a statement from the Suez Canal Authority said
- The new extension is set to boost the canal’s capacity by six to eight vessels a day
CAIRO: Egypt has tested a new 10-kilometer extension to the Suez Canal as it tries to minimize the impact of currents on shipping and increase the key waterway’s capacity.
Two ships used the new extension on Saturday, a statement from the Suez Canal Authority said.
Authority chief Osama Rabie said the development in the canal’s southern region will “enhance navigational safety and reduce the effects of water and air currents on passing ships.”
Vessels navigating the waterway have at times run aground, mostly because of strong winds and sandstorms.
In 2021, giant container ship Ever Given became wedged diagonally in the canal, blocking trade for nearly a week and resulting in delays that cost billions of dollars.
The new extension is set to boost the canal’s capacity by six to eight vessels a day, Rabie said, and it will open after new navigational maps are issued.
In 2015, Egypt undertook an $8-billion expansion to the waterway, followed by several smaller development projects.
The Suez Canal has long been a vital source of foreign currency for Egypt that has been undergoing its worst ever economic crisis.
According to the International Monetary Fund, revenue from the canal has been slashed by up to 70 percent since last year because of attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea.
Before the attacks pushed companies to change routes, the vital passage accounted for around 10 percent of global maritime trade.
