Al-‘Ahly Arab Hospital, one of the last ones still operating in its northern part Gaza Strip, ceased operations today after being attacked by the Israeli army, its manager said.

The Israeli army has been besieging this Gaza City hospital since Monday night, arresting several doctors, nurses, wounded, and destroying part of the compound, its director, Dr. Fadel Naim, told AFP.

The invasion of the occupying army put the hospital out of business, We cannot accept patients, nor wounded, he declared.

Four people wounded Monday by Israeli fire while in hospital succumbed today, he added.

“They blindfolded us and tied us up. Our hands hurt from the ropes. We were tied up for more than nine hours in the cold,” nurse Mohammad Araj told AFPTV, the Agence France-Presse television, after his release.

“They tortured whoever they wanted. We heard the screams while blindfolded. We didn’t know what would happen to us, if they would kill us or if we would survive,” he added.

When asked, the Israeli military did not immediately respond to the allegations.

Al-‘Ahli ‘Arab, also called the Baptist hospital, was already damaged after an explosion in its parking lot on October 17 killed more than 400 people, according to Hamas officials.

Hamas had blamed the blast on a strike by Israel, which rejected the accusation, saying it had “evidence” that it was a misfire by Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group.

The spokesman for the health ministry in the Hamas government, Ashraf al-Kindreh, said today that another hospital in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Al-‘Awda, located in Jabalia, has been turned into a “barracks” by the Israeli army.

As he said, the army has detained 240 people inside the hospital, “including 80 members of the nursing staff and 40 patients” and arrested its director, Dr. Ahmad Mhana.

The humanitarian situation, already catastrophic, continues to worsen in the Gaza Strip due to heavy Israeli bombardment, according to aid organizations operating in the region.

Shortages of water, electricity and food remain greatdespite the arrival of humanitarian aid.

On Sunday, the World Health Organization announced that al-Ahli Arab Hospital was accepting “critically ill patients” from neighboring al-Sifa Hospital “for surgical procedures.”

Al-Sifa, the largest hospital complex in the Gaza Strip, is now operating at a bare minimum and with a very limited team of doctors and nurses, following the major operation in November against the Israeli army which accuses Hamas of using the hospitals as centers of command.

Less than a third of the Gaza Strip’s hospitals are functioning, and only partially, according to the UN.

Hospitals have been repeatedly hit by Israeli strikes since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, which erupted following the Palestinian movement’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7.

In total, 1,140 people, mostly civilians, were killed that day, according to an AFP tally based on the latest official Israeli figures.

In retaliation, Israel, which has vowed to destroy the Islamist movement, has been shelling the Gaza Strip since October 7, where nearly 19,670 people, mostly civilians, have been killed, according to the Hamas government.