Israel on Friday defended last week’s military operation on a hospital in Gaza, while the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called the allegations “baseless” and the World Health Organization (WHO) called on Israel to release the jailed director. of the hospital.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN headquarters in Geneva, Daniel Meron, shared on social media platforms the letter he sent on Friday to the WHO and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk. In it, he underlines that the military operation at Kamal Atouan Hospital was carried out because there was “irrefutable evidence” that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters were using the facilities. He also assures that the Israeli army took measures to prevent civilian casualties.

Addressing the UN Security Council, Volker Turk said on Friday that Israel “did not substantiate” its complaints, which he described as vague and general. In some cases, he believes they were contradicted by publicly available information.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for “independent and thorough investigations, with transparency, into all Israeli attacks against hospitals, health care infrastructure and medical personnel, as well as allegations of abuse of such facilities.”

Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Jonathan Miller, said more than “240 terrorists were arrested, including 15 involved in the October 7, 2023 massacre” that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

During this military operation, the director of the Kamal Antoine hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyya, was also arrested. “We suspect that he is a member of Hamas, as hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists were hiding inside the Kamal Antoin hospital that he ran. He is being investigated by Israeli security services,” Miller said.

The World Health Organization is deeply concerned about Abu Shafiya, WHO spokesman Richard Pieperkorn said. “We have now lost all communication with him and we request his immediate release,” he added.

Washington is gathering intelligence on Abu Shafiya, Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the Security Council.

Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour wept as he recalled the words of a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor, Mahmoud Abu Nujaila from Gaza’s Al-Awda Hospital, who was killed in an Israeli strike in November of 2023. Mansour reminded that the Nujaila had written on a list of planned surgeries: “Whoever stays until the end will tell the story. We did everything we could. Remember us.”