File photo of a patient who was evacuated from  Kamal Adwan Hospital —AFP

Israel on Friday defended its raid on a north Gaza hospital last week while the UN human rights chief called the justification unsubstantiated and the World Health Organization urged Israel to release the hospital's director from detention.

Israel's UN  ambassador in Geneva, Daniel Meron, posted on social media a letter he sent on Friday to the WHO and Volker Turk, the  UN  human rights official. It said the raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital a week ago was "triggered by irrefutable evidence" that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants were using the hospital.

He said Israeli forces had taken "extraordinary measures to protect civilian life while acting on credible intelligence."

Turk told the UN  Security Council on Friday that Israel did not "substantiate many of these claims, which are often vague and broad. In some cases, they appear to be contradicted by publicly available information”.

"I am calling for independent, thorough and transparent investigations into all Israeli attacks on hospitals, healthcare infrastructure and medical personnel, as well as the alleged misuse of such facilities," he told the 15-member body.

Israel's Deputy UN  Ambassador Jonathan Miller said more than "240 terrorists were apprehended, including 15 who participated in the October 7 massacre" in southern Israel in 2023, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

The hospital's director, Hussam Abu Safiya, was also detained in the raid. "We suspect him of being a Hamas operative as hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were hiding inside the Kamal Adwan Hospital under his management.

He is currently being investigated by Israeli security forces," Miller said. The WHO is deeply concerned about Abu Safiya, said WHO representative Richard Peeperkorn, adding: "We have lost contact with him since and call for his immediate release."