The move was necessary due to the closure of the hospital in the terrorist detention facility of Sde Teiman.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Dozens of recently captured Gazan terrorists are being treated in Israeli hospitals due to the recent closure of the medical center in the large detention facility at the Sde Teiman military base, Channel 12 reported Sunday.
Some 60 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad combatants of the 240 caught in the IDF raid ten days ago on the Kamal Adwan Hospital that had become a terror base in northern Gaza, have been brought to hospitals both near and far.
These included Barzilai in Ashkelon and Assuta Ashdod just north of the Strip, as well as Ichilov in Tel Aviv, Wolfson in Holon and Shaare Zedek in Jerusalem, said the report.
Among the captured terrorists were those who had participated in the Hamas-led invasion of Israel last October 7 in which 1,200 people were massacred, including women and children.
The IDF and Ministry of Health had shut down the southern base’s medical facility in October due to the dwindling number of terrorists needing care.
The Health Ministry stated at the time that “Recently there has been a significant decrease in the volume of activity at the medical facility, due to the change in the activity of the detention facility and the transfer of detainees to other detention facilities. In fact, recently there have been no patients at all at the medical facility.”
“The army and the ministry are making the necessary adjustments to the infrastructure in order to respond according to needs,” the statement added, and later senior ministry officials clarified that “in the event of renewed intensification of the fighting, the facility will be reactivated.”
A Channel 12 report stated then that “at the peak of the hospital’s activity” it contained 20 prisoners on average.
The IDF began bringing those needing treatment to public Israeli hospitals, the report said, where they are guarded by the military police.
The move was not without controversy, with a health system source telling the media outlet that “A dedicated hospitalization facility for terrorists needs to be established” to prevent “all terrorists” from being treated in Israel.
The medical compound in Sde Teiman, the site where up to about a thousand Gazan terrorists have been held at a time after being caught during military operations in the Strip, was established towards the beginning of the war after large numbers of Israelis protested over wounded terrorists being treated in Israeli hospitals alongside injured IDF soldiers and civilians.