Khalid Abu Samra, a chief of a department at the Al-Shifa Hospital, has said Israeli forces arrested the facility’s director, Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiya, and several other senior medics.

An official in the health ministry specified to AFP that one other doctor and two nurses had been detained, as well as the hospital director.

In a statement, Hamas said it “strongly denounces” the arrest of Salmiya and his colleagues, calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organisations to work towards their “immediate release”.