Israel says it has caught more than 200 Hamas and other terrorist suspects in its controversial operation at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Northern Gaza.

The IDF has denied widely reported claims by Hamas that it set fire to the facility, which it had ordered to be evacuated.

In a statement posted on X on Saturday evening, it said that 240-plus “Hamas, Islamic Jihad terrorists and other suspected activities were apprehended, some of whom attempted to pose as patients or free using ambulances”.

Booby troops around Kamal Adwan Hospital (source: X/IDF)

The IDF said that 15 terrorists who had infiltrated the country on the October 7 massacre had been taken into questioning along with Hamas engineering and anti-tank missile operatives.

The hospital’s director who was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative” was also detained for questioning.

IDF special forces had conducted “precise activities inside the hospital locating and confiscating weapons in the area, including grenades, guns, munitions and military equipment”.

The raid against the hospital has been strongly condemned by the World Health Organisation, that said yesterday it was “appalled” by the action, “which put the last major health facility in North Gaza out of service”.

The WHO said, “The systematic dismantling of the health system and a siege for over 80 days on North Gaza puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk.”

Initial reports, it went on, indicated that “some areas of the hospital were burnt and severely damaged during the raid, including the laboratory, surgical unit, engineering and maintenance department, operations theatre, and the medical store”.

But IDF spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani rejected any suggestion that Israel was responsible for the fire.“While IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control,” the Times of Israel reported him as saying, adding that a preliminary investigation had found “no connection” between military activity and the fire.

In an earlier X post, the IDF said it had been conducting “targeted operations… while mitigating harm to uninvolved civilians, patients and medical personnel”.

It was making “extensive efforts to enable patients to continue receiving care in other hospitals,” it said.