By Quds News Network
Gaza (Quds News Network)- Calls have grown for the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, after he was abducted by Israeli forces during a raid on the area’s last remaining medical facility.
Kamal Adwan Under Israeli Attack
On Friday morning, the hospital was stormed by Israeli forces, following nearly three months of a suffocating blockade and constant air strikes on its departments and their vicinity.
The bombing caused several departments to catch fire, killing and wounding Palestinian medical workers and patients, according to Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza.
All remaining medical staff, patients and their relatives were taken out of the hospital at gunpoint, forced to strip down to their underwear and transferred to an unknown location.
At the time of the raid, there were 350 people in the hospital, including 180 medical workers and 75 wounded people, according to the Gaza-based Government Media Office.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said dozens of doctors were taken to detention centres for interrogation.
On Saturday, it confirmed that Abu Safiya had been arrested. Israeli forces violently beat him before his arrest, Bursh told Al Jazeera.
Reports have confirmed that Abu Sagiya is now being held in the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility.
Over the past three months, Abu Safiya, a paediatrician, has published dozens of videos and sent out pleas to the international community to act against the Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital.
He repeatedly warned that the lives of patients and medical staff were in danger amid constant Israeli bombings and a siege preventing the entry of aid and food.
In late October, Abu Safiya’s son died as a result of an earlier Israeli raid on the hospital, according to health officials.
A month later, he was wounded in an Israeli air strike on the hospital complex.
Growing Calls
Fears are growing for Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s safety, as he may face the same fate as Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, an orthopedic surgeon who continued treating the wounded amid Israeli airstrikes. Al-Bursh was abducted by Israeli forces on December 19, 2023, and taken to Sde Teiman, where he was likely raped, tortured, and murdered while in custody.
[https://twitter.com/RyanRozbiani/status/1873360823864730011]
The last picture of Abu Safiya, widely shared on social media, showed him walking towards an Israeli tank near the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
[https://twitter.com/Portes_Thomas/status/1873103274414621041]
MedGlobal said Abu Safiya’s “arrest is not only unjust — it is a violation of international humanitarian law, which upholds the protection of medical personnel in conflict zones. MedGlobal urgently calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Abu [Safiya].”
[https://twitter.com/MedGlobalOrg/status/1872986035753250885]
Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, said Abu Safiya is considered a human rights defender by Front Line Defenders, an Irish-based organisation that works to protect people who are “at risk for their peaceful and legitimate human rights work”.
[https://twitter.com/AgnesCallamard/status/1873131005021962263]
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also demanded the “immediate release” of the Kamal Adwan Hospital director, calling to stop attacks on hospitals.
[https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1873595575167283556]
UN’s Palestine expert Francesca Albanese said “all of us must do all we can to save” him.
[https://twitter.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1873508452951343597]
[https://twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe/status/1873135601735877053]
[https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1873336113437589913]
31 December 2024
Source: countercurrents.org