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An Israeli court has ordered Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya—whose distressed mother reportedly died earlier this week—to be held without charge until February 13.
The largest professional association of U.S. pediatricians is asking the State Department to intervene on behalf of a Gaza hospital director detained by Israel, where a court on Thursday ordered an extension of his imprisonment until mid-February.
The Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights said Friday that the Ashkelon Magistrates' Court extended the detention of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a 51-year-old pediatrician who is the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, without charges until February 13, and without access to legal counsel until January 22.
Israeli troops forcibly detained Abu Safiya on December 28 amid a prolonged siege and assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital, from which he refused to evacuate as long as patients were there. Former detainees recently released from the Sde Teiman torture prison in southern Israel said they met Abu Safiya there. According to testimonies gathered by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Abu Safiya was tortured before his arrival at Sde Teiman and inside the notorious lockup.
Al Mezan said that Abu Safiya's attorney believes he is now being jailed at Ofer Prison in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Palestinian media reported earlier this week that Abu Safiya's mother died of a heart attack. MedGlobal, the Ilinois-based nonprofit for which Abu Safiya works as lead Gaza physician, said she died from "severe sadness" over her son's plight.
Dr. Sue Kressley, president of the 67,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), sent a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to "seek the assistance of the U.S. government to inquire about the whereabouts and well-being" of Abu Safiya, and to voice concern "for the children who are now without access to pediatric emergency care in northern Gaza," where 15 months of relentless Israeli attacks and siege have obliterated the healthcare system.
As Common Dreams has reported, children in northern Gaza are being killed not only by Israeli bombs and bullets, but also by exposure to cold weather after Israeli troops forcibly expelled their families from homes and other places of shelter while "cleansing" the area.
Kressley's letter asks Blinken to explain what the Biden administration is doing to determine Abu Safiya's whereabouts and why he is being held, what condition he is in, a status report on northern Gaza's hospitals and their capacity for care, and what the U.S. is doing to "improve access to pediatric care in Gaza."
On Friday, the Council on American Islamic-Relations (CAIR) welcomed the AAP letter in a statement asserting that "Secretary Blinken could pick up the phone and demand" that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—"release Dr. Abu Safiya and all those illegally detained and facing torture and abuse at the hands of Israeli forces."
"The Biden administration's silence on the kidnapping of Dr. Abu Safiya, and on the torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, sends the message that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim lives and dignity are of no consequence to U.S. officials," CAIR added.
In the United Kingdom, the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) on Thursday demanded that the U.K. government "take urgent action to protect healthcare workers and patients and ensure the immediate release of all arbitrarily detained medical staff."
"The Israeli military has escalated their systematic targeting of Palestinian healthcare workers, with hundreds currently arbitrarily detained under inhuman conditions," MAP said. "These detentions are part of Israel's systematic dismantling of Gaza's health system, which is making Palestinian survival impossible."
MAP Gaza director Fikr Shalltoot said in a statement: "We at MAP are extremely concerned for the life and safety of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all Palestinian healthcare workers detained by Israeli forces. These detentions, alongside systematic assaults on hospitals in North Gaza, have left tens of thousands of people without access to healthcare and forced them to flee southwards."
"Dr. Abu Safiya spent weeks and months sending distress calls about Israeli military attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, and the dangers posed to his colleagues and patients," Shalltoot added. "His warnings were met with deafening silence from the international community. It is long overdue for the U.K. and other nations to act decisively to protect Palestinians from ethnic cleansing, ensure the safety of healthcare workers, and hold Israel accountable."
Back in the U.S.—where healthcare professionals staged a nationwide "SickFromGenocide" protest earlier this week—members of medical advocacy groups including Doctors Against Genocide, Jewish Voice for Peace-Health Advisory Council, and Healthcare Workers for Palestine-Chicago who recently returned from volunteering in Gaza held a press conference Friday in Chicago demanding the release of Abu Safiya and the "protection of hospitals and healthcare workers" in the embattled enclave.
"The Israeli government is waging a campaign of death and destruction that has brought the Middle East to a state of war, with millions currently fleeing U.S.-made bombs," said Jewish Voice for Peace.
Tens of thousands of people around the world took to the streets Sunday just ahead of the one-year anniversary of Israel's catastrophic assault on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 41,000 people, decimated the enclave's civilian infrastructure, and sparked one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history.
The assault, backed by the United States and other world powers, began in the wake of a Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 that killed roughly 1,200 people. Hundreds of others were taken hostage, dozens of whom are still being held captive in Gaza.
The Israeli military's subsequent onslaught has spared no one: Children, nurses and doctors, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, and Israeli hostages have been killed in the bombing campaign and ground war, which appears set to continue indefinitely as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sabotages cease-fire efforts.
Netanyahu, along with Hamas leaders, is facing a possible arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an advocate group that campaigns for Palestinian rights, held demonstrations in U.S. 26 cities on Sunday to "mourn a year of death and destruction" and call on their government to "stop arming the Israeli military" as it continues to bombard Gaza and ramps up its attacks on Lebanon.
As the demonstrations took place, Israel's military killed dozens of Gazans in an attack on a mosque and school in central Gaza. A fragment of an American-made bomb kit was found at the scene.
"After a year of genocide against Palestinians, the Israeli government is waging a campaign of death and destruction that has brought the Middle East to a state of war, with millions currently fleeing U.S.-made bombs," JVP said in a statement. "From Portland to Knoxville, from Detroit to Los Angeles, from Tacoma to Milwaukee, to Boston to Atlanta, and so many more cities across the country, Jewish Voice for Peace members gathered in prayer and song to demand an immediate weapons embargo."
Thousands of people are taking to Storrow Drive in Boston demanding the US end the genocide and stop arming Israel!
One year of genocide and one year of mass mobilizations to oppose Zionism! pic.twitter.com/yzIRTG8byd
— Jewish Voice for Peace - Boston (@JVPBoston) October 6, 2024
Demonstrations also took place in Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, South Africa, the Philippines, and other nations, with protesters calling for an immediate arms embargo and cease-fire.
"We need a cease-fire now, a suspension of arms transfers to Israel, and unobstructed delivery of humanitarian aid," said Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at the U.K.-based group Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). "We need all of this to stop a potential genocide and protect Palestinian survival in Gaza and, increasingly, across the region."
MAP's Gaza director, Fikr Shalltoot, added that "we have run out of words to describe the horrors our teams are witnessing and experiencing in Gaza."
"Frequent mass killings of civilians, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and the systematic destruction of healthcare are an existential threat to people," said Shalltoot. "Gaza is being erased in front of our eyes."
Demonstrators rally in Barcelona to demand an end to Israel's assault on Gaza. (Photo: Paco Freire/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Palestinian officials said Sunday that around 50 people had been killed by Israeli forces in the preceding 48 hours in attacks on schools, homes, and shelters for displaced people.
Reutersreported that the Israeli army on Saturday "issued new evacuation orders in parts of Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, just north of Deir al-Balah, forcing hundreds of families to leave their houses." Additionally, "Israeli tanks pushed into the northern Gaza areas of Beit Lahiya and Jabalia overnight, and planes hit several houses, killing at least 20 people, according to medics."
The new operation in northern Gaza came amid reports that top Israeli officials are weighing what one outlet described as "a plan to liquidate northern Gaza," which is facing famine conditions caused by Israel's war and siege.
In a statement marking the one-year anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and the start of Israel's latest military assault on Gaza, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Monday that "the war that has followed the terrible attacks of one year ago continues to shatter lives and inflict profound human suffering for Palestinians in Gaza, and now the people of Lebanon."
"It is time for the release of the hostages," said Guterres, who last week was declared persona non grata by Israel's foreign minister. "Time to silence the guns. Time to stop the suffering that has engulfed the region. Time for peace, international law, and justice."
"We're doing everything we can, navigating through critical shortages and working with very limited resources, to save lives amidst this dire situation."
Members of an emergency medical team that has treated patients at a hospital in southern Gaza in recent weeks said Monday that the horrors they've witnessed there are "unimaginable," from worsening malnutrition to deadly infections stemming from lack of healthcare equipment.
The team formed by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) has been working at the European Hospital near Khan Younis, a city decimated by Israeli bombing. At least two hospitals in the city are currently under siege by Israeli forces, which have killed more than 32,000 Gazans and injured tens of thousands more in less than six months.
"The situation we're facing is beyond comprehension," said Arvind Das, IRC's Gaza team lead. "Continuous Israeli military operations near hospitals are making an already tense situation even worse for those seeking shelter or medical help, pushing the healthcare system to the brink of collapse."
"Despite the relentless efforts of our medical teams, the infrastructure necessary to deliver optimal medical care has been severely compromised by bombing, stringent restrictions on the entry of aid including medical supplies, and the overwhelming surge in needs," Das added. "We're doing everything we can, navigating through critical shortages and working with very limited resources, to save lives amidst this dire situation."
Not a single hospital in the Gaza Strip is fully functional after months of Israeli attacks, and the dozen that are partially operating are well beyond capacity, with patients and displaced people filling the hallways and outskirts of the facilities. The United Nations' special rapporteur on the right to health has accused Israel's military of waging an "unrelenting war" on Gaza's medical system.
Dr. Konstantina Ilia Karydi, an anesthetist with the emergency medical team, said Monday that the European Hospital "had an original capacity of just 200 beds, and at the moment it has expanded to 1,000 beds."
"There are around 22,000 people that have been displaced from other parts of Gaza sheltering in the corridors and in tents inside the hospital, because people feel that it's safer to be here than anywhere else," said Karydi.
"We worked around the challenges we faced and managed in a different way, but the staff here are overwhelmed."
MAP said in a statement that the medical team's surgeons "completed successful complex vascular and orthopedic surgeries on patients" at the hospital, but some "later died due to infections in the hospitals and the inability to provide post-operative care."
"This is due to the intense security situation that forced healthcare workers to evacuate hospitals and hindered their access," said MAP. "Moreover, significant damage to hospital infrastructure and facilities, coupled with a complete shortage of equipment and medicine—largely due to Israel's restrictions on medical aid entry into Gaza—severely impacted the ability to provide necessary care."
Dr. Husam Basheer, an orthopedic surgeon with the emergency medical team, stressed that healthcare workers in the territory are "managing with the bare minimum of resources," lacking even basic supplies such as gauze.
"We worked around the challenges we faced and managed in a different way," said Basheer, "but the staff here are overwhelmed."
The medical team's report added to the abundance of harrowing accounts from healthcare personnel on the devastating conditions inside Gaza's hospitals, many of which have been shelled and raided—in some cases repeatedly—by Israeli forces.
Al Jazeerareported Monday that the Israeli military has "surrounded the al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in southern Gaza, while pressing on with their siege of Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the strip."
"Military vehicles, tanks, and attack drones are encircling these two facilities," Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported. "They're also blocking the entrance with piles of sand, preventing medical staff, patients, and injured people inside from leaving safely and constantly failing to provide a safe corridor for people and evacuees trapped inside the hospital."
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, responded with alarm Monday to reports that Israeli forces killed a Palestinian Red Crescent Society volunteer and a displaced person sheltering at al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.
"Another reported attack on al-Amal hospital in Gaza, another situation where patients and health workers are in great jeopardy," Tedros wrote on social media. "We appeal for their immediate protection, and repeat our call for a cease-fire."