Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital ‘safe haven’ for Hamas, captured terrorist says

The more than 240 Palestinian terrorists arrested by the Israel Defense Forces in northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital late last month provided “substantial intelligence information,” the army said Tuesday.

The intelligence is “assisting IDF operations in the area,” according to the IDF.

Anas Muhammad Faiz al-Sharif, one of the Hamas members arrested in the hospital raid, told interrogators that the terrorist organization sees the northern Gaza facility as “a safe haven for them because the [Israeli] military cannot directly target it.”

“They think the military cannot bomb it, such as with a missile from an F-16 or by demolishing the building,” Al-Sharif told them. “The [terrorist] operatives were there, transporting equipment and weapons like AK-47s ... and pistols,” he said, confirming that “the weapons were transferred to and from the hospital.”

The operatives “leave the hospital late at night; they arrive at the hospital in the morning,” he said.

“Inside the hospital, they distribute the grenades and mortars equipment for attacking tanks, for ambush positions and for tunnels, to command and control centers, whether at Kamal Adwan, Faluja, or in new locations where the operatives are located,” he told interrogators.

The 240 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists were detained in an operation by the 162nd Armored Division, the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).

Fifteen among those arrested infiltrated the Jewish state during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, according to a joint IDF and Shin Bet statement published on Dec. 28.

“Despite repeated calls to refrain from allowing terrorists to exploit hospitals for military activities, IDF and Shin Bet intelligence identified that terrorists were once again using Kamal Adwan Hospital as a command center for its military operations in Jabalia,” the statement noted.

Some Hamas and PIJ members tried to pose as patients or flee in ambulances during the IDF raid, the statement continued. During the operation some 20 terrorists were killed, and the explosives they had planted were safely defused.

The hospital’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya, was taken into custody for interrogation as a Hamas terrorist suspect.

Before the raid, 350 patients and medical staff were safely evacuated from the hospital in an effort coordinated with the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit.