The World Health Organization has joined growing calls demanding the immediate release of Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza and whose whereabouts remain unknown, warning that hospitals have again become “battlegrounds” amid cold sufferings of Palestinians.

In a post on X, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israel to ensure that patients and medical workers’ healthcare needs and rights are upheld even as Israeli attacks continue.

“We repeat: stop attacks on hospitals. People in Gaza need access to health care. Humanitarians need access to provide health aid. Ceasefire!” Ghebreyesus said in his post.

READ MORE: WHO chief calls for end to hospital attacks in Gaza after strike

He also reported that amid the “ongoing chaos in northern Gaza”, the WHO and its partners delivered basic medical and hygiene supplies, food and water to the Indonesian Hospital and transferred 10 critical patients to Al-Shifa Hospital.

“Four patients were detained during the transfer. We urge Israel to ensure their healthcare needs and rights are upheld. Seven patients along with 15 caregivers and health workers remain at the severely damaged Indonesian Hospital, which has no ability to provide care,” said the WHO director-general.

He said Al-Ahli Hospital and Al-Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital in Gaza City also faced attacks and “both are damaged”.

“Hospitals in Gaza have once again become battlegrounds and the health system is under severe threat. Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza is out of service — following the raid, forced patient and staff evacuation and the detention of its director…His whereabouts are unknown. We call for his immediate release. The critical patients were moved to Indonesian Hospital, which is itself out of function,” said Ghebreyesus.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza, said in a post on X that for each Palestinian life “that should and could have been saved in Gaza”, “we have been put to the test”.

“And we have failed, over and over. We must not fail again. All of us must do all we can to save Dr Abu Safiya, said Albanese.

In an update on Dec 28, the Euro-med Human Rights Monitor published some harrowing testimonies of serious crimes committed by the Israeli army against civilians during the storming of Kamal Adwan Hospital and surrounding areas.

These crimes included deliberate killings, field executions, as well as sexual and physical assaults on women and girls from medical teams and displaced women in the area.

“The Israeli army detained dozens of women and girls, subjecting them to severe abuse amounting to sexual harassment, alongside degrading treatment that violated their human dignity. This included beating them and forcing them to remove their hijabs and clothing,” according to the report.

“Euro-Med Monitor reiterates its calls for all relevant international and UN parties to act immediately to fulfill their legal obligations to end the genocide in Gaza, impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, hold it accountable for all its crimes, and take concrete measures to protect Palestinian civilians,” it added.

Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit also condemned Israel over the burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital.

In a statement published by the Kuwait News Agency or KUNA, Aboul-Gheit said that the Israel’s “war crimes” in Gaza would not be forgotten and that the international silence toward these crime was a “stain on the world conscience”.

He stressed that targeting the hospital and its personnel and besieging it for weeks was “an unprecedented insistence on dehumanization of Gazans”.

He added that after 450 days, the conflict has reached its “ugliest stages” with children dying of freezing and medical personnel dying of burns. The global silence toward the Israel’s crimes, he said, would lead to the collapse of the international humanitarian law system after failure to protect civilians from killing and torture.

Overnight, hundreds of tents were flooded in displacement camps in different areas of the Gaza strip due to heavy rains, Wafa news agency reported.

It said the displaced, particularly in the Deir al-Balah and Al-Mawasi Khan Younis areas in the southern Gaza Strip, spent a harsh night inside their tents that were swallowed by rainwater and blown away by winds.

In another report, a sixth infant died of cold in the Gaza Strip on Dec 30 in less than a week as winter set in amid the lack of heating facilities, Wafa news agency also reported. A few days ago, four newborn children between the ages of 4 and 21 days died due to the low temperatures and severe cold.

Meanwhile, in its operational update, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a precise strike on “terrorists from Hamas' Aerial Defense Unit” in the Shejaiya area, was conducted.

“The command and control center in question used to serve as the El-Wafa Hospital, and was used by the terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops in the immediate future,” according to the IDF post on X.

READ MORE: Israel razes parts of Gaza's Jabalia, hits Rafah with airstrikes

“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians and civil facilities, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence. This is yet another example of Hamas’ exploitation of civilian infrastructure, in violation of international law,” the IDF added.

In their joint operation with the Israeli Securities Authority, the IDF said in an update on Dec 30 that it eliminated six Hamas terrorists — who had participated in the Oct 7, 2023 massacre —  in Jabalia and Beit Lahiya in Gaza.

“The IDF and ISA will continue to operate against every terrorist who participated in the brutal October 7 Massacre,” it added.

Contact the writer at jan@chinadailyapac.com