After nearly three months of an intensified Israeli military campaign in northern Gaza to quell what Israel has said is a Hamas resurgence, fighting raged unabated on Monday, with each side claiming successes against the other’s fighters.
The Israeli military released a statement saying that one soldier had been killed in combat in the northern Gaza Strip and that three members of the same brigade had been severely injured in the same clash. The statement provided no additional details.
The military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, said it had destroyed an Israeli vehicle in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing and wounding an unspecified number of soldiers. The militant group also said that it had targeted Israeli soldiers in another northern town, Jabaliya, killing five.
The Israeli military declined to comment, saying it does not respond to the announcements of “terror organizations.”
For its part, the Israeli military announced that it had killed and arrested “multiple” militants in an overnight operation near Jabaliya as they were trying to “flee, deploy deception tactics and conduct ambushes.” It said that action followed a “targeted operation” against a Hamas command center “embedded inside Kamal Adwan Hospital” in the same area over the weekend that led to the arrest of more than 240 militants.
Israel said its troops were “continuing to operate” in the area.
The Israeli military on Monday also released footage it said it had found in Gaza purporting to show Hamas operatives planting explosives near the Indonesian Hospital, which is in the north of the enclave. The military said its troops had been operating near there last week to “eliminate” militants “who attempted to flee the hospital,” and that it had arrested “tens” of additional fighters and “neutralized” areas rigged with explosives.
“This is another example of the Hamas terror organization’s cynical use of the population and civilian institutions in the Gaza Strip” the military said.
The New York Times was not able to independently verify the footage.
The fighting in and around hospitals in northern Gaza has raised alarms in the international community and among humanitarian organizations.
“France condemns Israeli military operations targeting several hospitals in Gaza, notably that of Kamal Adwan, which is now out of service,” France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Monday. It expressed particular concern over the fate of the hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyah. He was among the 240 people the Israeli military said it had arrested in what it called a “targeted operation” at the facility on Friday.
Israeli officials have accused Hamas of exploiting Kamal Adwan and other civilian infrastructure in Gaza for military purposes, and the Israeli military said on Saturday that the director was a “suspect” and was “being questioned regarding his potential involvement in terrorist activity” without providing evidence to support the claim.
Dr. Abu Safiyah has been vocal in his condemnation of Israeli military actions in and around the hospital and in Gaza broadly, and has documented the death and destruction he has witnessed.
“Since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip, our father has made tremendous efforts to support the crumbling health system,” his family said in a statement on Monday.
The statement said that Dr. Abu Safiyah had lost a son and had been injured in the war but that he had continued to serve as a “pillar of support” for civilians in northern Gaza since Israel’s renewed military campaign began there in October. It called on the international community to take “urgent and immediate action” to ensure the doctor’s release.
Agnès Callamard, the head of Amnesty International, on Monday called in a statement for Dr. Abu Safiyah’s release, saying the organization was “extremely concerned” about his fate in detention.
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also called for the hospital director’s release and demanded an end to fighting in and around medical facilities.
“Hospitals in #Gaza have once again become battlegrounds and the health system is under severe threat,” he said on social media. Dr. Abu Safiyah had decried the dire situation at the hospital in a video posted to social media on Dec. 24, during which explosions could be heard in the background.
“All night, we are bombarded in this way,” he said. “We are being killed and slaughtered every day.”
The health authorities in Gaza, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, said in a statement on Monday that the death toll in Gaza since the war began had surpassed 45,540 people. It said more than two dozen people had been killed in the last day.
With the death of the Israeli soldier in northern Gaza, the total number of Israeli soldiers who have died since the Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people and set off the war in October 2023 is 825, Israel said.
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