JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers captured around 100 suspected Hamas militants during a raid in Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, the military said on Monday.
Gaza health officials and Hamas have denied any militant presence at the hospital, which Israeli forces stormed on Friday and left on Saturday.
“The soldiers apprehended approximately 100 terrorists from the compound, including terrorists who attempted to escape during the evacuation of civilians. Inside the hospital, they found weapons, terror funds, and intelligence documents,” the military said.
Gaza’s health ministry said the troops had detained dozens of male medical staffers and damaged the hospital, which had already been struggling to operate with heavy Israeli raids in the area.
“A few of the fully identified terrorists disguised themselves as medical staff so we didn’t have any alternative but to check the medical staff as well,” a military official told journalists in an online briefing.
Footage circulated by Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday – which Reuters could not immediately verify – showed damage to several buildings after the Israeli forces withdrew.
The military official said that troops had caused limited damage to the hospital when entering it and that soldiers also had to destroy what he described as “dual use” equipment, like oxygen tanks, which if detonated could have harmed anyone at the complex.
Medical staffers refused to evacuate the hospital or leave their patients unattended. Hundreds of displaced Palestinians had also been sheltering there.
“They evacuated all those who were sheltering here…They separated men from women and made two queues, it was very humiliating for our men since they took them without clothes and nothing to cover with,” said Mayssoun Alian, a hospital nurse.
The military official said that suspected Hamas men arrested were stripped to check them for weapons. “After checking them we supplied them with clothes,” he said.
Gaza medics said at least two children had died inside the intensive care unit after Israeli fire hit the generators and oxygen station in the facility on Friday.
The military said civilians at the hospital were kept safe, despite heavy fighting near the complex. Fuel, medical equipment and blood units had been provided to the hospital and electricity and oxygen supply had been ensured, it said.