Brett Jonathan Miller, the deputy Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that Algeria, the council’s president for the month of January, has wasted no time in turning the body’s attention away from serious, regional issues to defend Hamas operatives arrested in a hospital raid.
“The Middle East stands today at a critical juncture,” the Israeli diplomat said.
Miller noted Houthi attacks on civilian areas in the Jewish state and the Red Sea, resumed Hamas rocket fire on Israel and Syria’s “precarious position following the fall of the brutal Assad regime.”
“However, the Algerian presidency has called for an emergency session in support of terrorists blatantly violating international law by exploiting a hospital as their base of activity, rather than condemning those terrorists,” he said. “Such actions deal immense damage to the credibility of the Security Council and the international system.”
The Security Council’s de facto representative of the Arab and Muslim world, Algeria called for an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss Israel’s Dec. 28 raid of northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, which is now inoperable.
The Israel Defense Forces said that it evacuated civilians and was acting on intelligence indicating that Hamas terrorists were in the hospital. Of 940 people who went through a checkpoint outside the hospital, the IDF said that it detained 240 people, whom it said were members of the terror organization. Of the 240, 15 are known to have participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, the Israeli military said.
International attention has focused on Israel’s arrest of Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital director. Israel initially denied that he was in custody. It subsequently said that he is a Hamas official who has taken part in terror activities.
The IDF said that it evacuated 600 civilians and another 95 patients, caregivers and medical personnel from Kamal Adwan.
During the week-long raid, the IDF said that it killed 19 terror operatives. Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization, claimed that 50 people were killed, including hospital staffers.
Miller told the Security Council that Hamas uses hospital grounds regularly for terror activities and that it built long tunnels under the Shifa and Turkish hospitals, allowing it to transfer weapons and fighters into and out of the facilities.
The IDF has released footage of hostages, whom Hamas captured on Oct. 7, being taken into Shifa Hospital, where one hostage was murdered. The IDF also identified a vehicle used during the attacks, which was found in the Indonesian Hospital compound in Gaza. It also found a vehicle that belonged to an Israeli hostage in the hospital area.
Days before the Security Council meeting, Hamas operatives were filmed planting explosives some 150 feet from the Indonesian Hospital, on Dec. 30.
“Now, Kamal Adwan Hospital has become the latest site exploited by Hamas—a grim addition to their well-documented and public history of abusing civilian infrastructure,” Miller said.
He added that the IDF had said for months that Hamas must vacate the hospital.
Dorothy Shea, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the council that Israel must ensure that hospitalized Gazans are protected, but “throughout this conflict, Hamas has repeatedly misused civilian infrastructure, like schools and hospitals, to store caches of weapons, house fighters and coordinate attacks against Israel.”
“Hamas continues—day in and day out—to put civilians in harm’s way through their tactics and use of these facilities,” she said.
Shea urged Security Council members to condemn the terror group for putting Palestinian civilians in danger. “Far too many still cannot bring themselves to do so,” she said. “Israel’s fight is with Hamas and not the Palestinian civilians the terrorist group falsely purports to represent. ”
Panama, which became a member of the Security Council with the new year, sought assurances that aid entering Gaza would reach the intended recipients. Eloy Alfaro de Alba, Panama’s ambassador to the global body, asked the council why Hamas still refuses to release the remaining hostages.
The United Kingdom was more critical of the Jewish state. “It is completely unacceptable that since Oct. 7, many medical facilities have been destroyed or damaged and over 1,000 medical personnel have been killed, injured or detained,” said Barbara Woodward, the U.K. ambassador to the United Nations.
Woodward acknowledged that London is “aware of reports of Hamas using civilian infrastructure for their operations, including hospitals” and “by embedding themselves in civilian infrastructure, Hamas clearly put Palestinian civilians and medical staff at risk.”
But the British envoy said Israel’s obligations, under international law, “to protect hospitals and healthcare workers are unconditional.”
Nicolas de Rivière, the French ambassador to the United Nations, stated that the country “condemns the recent Israeli military operations targeting several hospitals, in particular that of Kamal Adwan.”
“Israel must comply with international humanitarian law. This requires respect for, and protection of, medical staff and infrastructure,” he said, per an English translation of his remarks that the French mission released. (The statement didn’t mention that Hamas uses hospitals for terror purposes.)
Amar Bendjama, the Algerian envoy to the global body, accused the Jewish state of killing journalists and health workers via “genocidal tactics” that aren’t driven by “military necessity.”
Algeria is expected to maintain a focus on Gaza at the council during its presidency this month. It upgraded the scheduled Jan. 20 monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian file to a ministerial-level session, but U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration that day is likely to attract far more press coverage.