The Israeli military released a video it says shows militants handing in weapons after their surrender from a hospital in northern Gaza.
A hospital doctor told CNN the men, some of whom are stripped to the waist in the video, are civilians who were carrying out weapons belonging to hospital security and police on the orders of Israeli soldiers.
Israeli forces have had a heavy presence around the Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza City for well over a week, maintaining Israel’s operational focus on the strip’s medical facilities, which Israel insists are being used by Hamas to provide civilian cover for its military activities.
In a statement accompanying the release of the video on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said: “During IDF activity in the area, over 70 terrorist operatives came out of the hospital with weapons in hand.” The statement said the men had been handed over to Israeli intelligence units inside Gaza for interrogation.
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
The video, along with two stills also released Thursday by the IDF, show several men carrying weapons over their heads or in their arms and laying them on the ground.
Another clip on the same video shows a long line of men in civilian clothes, with their hands in the air — many holding their green identity papers — walking single file down a smashed-up street under Israeli guard.
CNN was able to speak briefly by phone to Dr. Hossam Abu-Safia, head of the pediatric department at Kamal Adwan hospital, as the incident was taking place.
“We are unarmed civilians standing in the hospital yard,” Safia said, adding that the Israeli army had instructed civilians to take the weapons outside and then filmed them doing it.
He said they had been given 10 minutes to evacuate the wounded from the hospital, along with medical staff.
“We don’t know where we are going,” he said.
When asked by CNN to respond to Safia’s comments, the IDF re-sent its original statement containing the same links to the video and the stills, but added nothing more.
Some context: Doctors at Kamal Adwan hospital have described frequent intense fighting around the facility for well over a week, with events escalating at the start of this week.
On Monday, a tank shell killed two women in the maternity ward and severely wounded two others, the hospital director told CNN.
A day later, on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry told CNN that Israeli forces had entered the hospital.
Later that day, dozens of medical staff, including the hospital director, were taken from the premises by Israeli troops to a nearby military screening center, a hospital doctor told CNN, withholding his name out of fear for his own safety.
Throughout the week, in response to enquiries about its actions in and around the hospital, the IDF has insisted it “takes all feasible precautions to mitigate harm to non-combatants, and is fighting against the Hamas terrorist organization, and not the civilians in Gaza or the medical teams operating there.”
Images from Gaza of men often stripped to their underwear surrendering to Israeli forces have been emerging over the last two weeks.
The images – usually uploaded unofficially on to social media – have been criticized as demonstrating degrading behavior by Israeli forces, but Israel insists it needs to be certain the people it has captured are not concealing hidden weapons or explosives.