Ahmed al-Kahlout, head of Kamal Adwan Hospital

Gaza City, December 13 (RHC)-- The Israeli military has abducted the director of a main hospital in the northern Gaza Strip after he condemned the occupying regime's days-long siege of the facility and its draconian and deadly repercussions.

Ahmed al-Kahlout, head of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the city of Beit Lahiya, was arrested and taken to an "unknown destination outside the hospital," Gaza's Health Ministry said on Tuesday.   The hospital has been under siege by Israeli tanks for the past four days. Earlier on Tuesday, health officials reported that Israeli forces had stormed the hospital, rounding up Palestinian men for interrogation.

Before his abduction, Kahlout had strongly criticized the siege laid on the hospital, saying it had caused the situation at the facility to become "very difficult."   "No electricity, water, or food at the hospital," Kahlout complained, and noted that "three children at the hospital lost their lives in the last three days due to a shortage of oxygen."

"Israeli drones target anyone entering or leaving the hospital," he had also said, announcing that the Israeli military had shelled the facility's maternity ward and water system, forcing the staff to rely on groundwater.  The Israeli military was sustaining its siege and attacks on the hospital, while the facility was accommodating "65 injuries, including 12 children in intensive care, six children with serious injuries, and 3,000 displaced people," the hospital director had said.

The remarks came amid an ongoing war by the Israeli regime against the entire Gaza, which Tel Aviv began on October 7 in response to an operation staged by the coastal sliver's resistance groups.

Nearly 18,500 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of the Israeli attacks, most of them women and children.