Attacks on Gaza's health sector make hospitals a 'battleground', WHO chief warns

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that Gaza's health sector is under increasing threat amid ongoing Israeli attacks and raids on hospitals. 

Ghebreyesus described hospitals in the enclave as "battlegrounds" in a post on X, formerly Twitter, noting that the Israeli incursion on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has rendered it out of service. 

The hospital was stormed by Israeli troops on Friday, following nearly three months of a suffocating blockade and constant air strikes on its departments and the area surrounding them.

All remaining medical staff, patients, and their relatives were taken out of the hospital at gunpoint, forced to strip down to their underwear and transferred to an unknown location. 

The Palestinian health ministry said dozens of doctors were taken to detention centres for interrogation, including the director of the hospital, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya.

Ghebreyesus called for the "immediate release" of Safiya, who was violently beaten by Israeli forces before his arrest, Munir al-Bursh, director-general of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, told Al Jazeera. 

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