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physicians for human rights
'Where the Hell Is Doctor Hussam?' Israel Gives Mixed Messages on Gaza Hospital Director
"To suggest he isn't in custody is an insult to the public's intelligence," said Dr. Muhammad Brika, his colleague at Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Jan 03, 2025
Israeli officials this week have given a human rights group and news media conflicting messages about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza who was detained when Israel's troops attacked the facility a week ago.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) contacted Mashlat—the Israeli body responsible for coordinating with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) regarding the location of detainees from the Gaza Strip—on behalf of Abu Safiya's family.
On Thursday, PHRI shared on social media a screenshot of Mashlat's email claiming to have "no indication of the arrest or detention of the individual in question," which contradicts the IDF's Friday statement to CNN.
"On December 27, 2024, military forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, surrounded the building, and arrested Dr. Abu Safiya," PHRI
detailed in the social media thread. "In a video recording, the senior doctor is seen walking toward an armored military vehicle and is taken from there for interrogation."
That same day, an Israeli spokesperson "confirmed that he was arrested and transferred for questioning, but since then, his whereabouts have entirely vanished," the group noted. "Unfortunately, the court gave the state one week to respond regarding the hospital director's location."
Following the email to PHRI, CNNreported Friday:
The IDF has since told CNN that Dr. Abu Safiya "was apprehended for suspected involvement in terrorist activities, and for holding a rank in the Hamas terror organization, while 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."
It made similar allegations about the hospital and its director around the time of the raid on the facility, without providing evidence for the claims.
While decimating Gaza hospitals and other civilian infrastructure—and killing at least 45,658 Palestinians—since October 2023, the IDF has repeatedly accused those killed and detained of ties to militant groups, often without sharing any evidence.
Citing recently released former detainees,
CNNreported Monday that Abu Safiya was among the medical professionals being held at Israel's notorious Sde Teiman military base in the Negev Desert, but his location has not been publicly confirmed as of Friday.
PHRI on Friday
circulated comments from Dr. Muhammad Brika, Abu Safiya's colleague at Kamal Adwan Hospital, who said: "To suggest he isn't in custody is an insult to the public's intelligence. The events we experienced were very clear."
"We remained at Kamal Adwan until the very end, until the military invaded the hospital," Brika continued, recalling the attack. "Dr. Abu Safiya was there the entire time. The image shown in the media, where he appears to be led towards the tank, does not reflect the reality of his arrest... Many details haven't been made public, and the truth is far different from the narrative they've tried to create."
"That same day, around 10:00 pm, we were forcibly transported to Al-Fakhoora school, with Dr. Abu Safiya up front," the doctor explained. "Upon arrival, we were treated horribly—forced to strip down to our underwear and left standing in the freezing cold. This continued until 1:30 am, during which Dr. Abu Safiya was taken into the school, either for interrogation or to give testimony. It's unclear what exactly was happening."
Abu Safiya was then brought back to the rest of the hospital workers, according to Brika. Israeli officers "told us one group would be arrested while the other would be allowed to leave the school," the doctor said. "At the last moment, they called Dr. Abu Safiya back and dressed him in white prison clothes in front of the entire medical staff. He was then formally arrested and taken into their custody, while the rest of us were allowed to leave."
People worldwide have sounded the alarm over officials' mixed messages about the missing hospital director—including Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard, who on Thursday urged Israeli authorities to "urgently disclose" his location and said that he should be considered a victim of enforced disappearance, "and as such at great risk of torture and ill-treatment."
Following CNN's Friday reporting, Callamard reiterated her call for Abu Safiya's release. She also highlighted how, under his leadership, the Gaza hospital "played an indispensable role in treating children suffering from malnutrition and dehydration-related issues," and "received those wounded from a series of Israeli attacks on starving people as they waited for flour trucks, known as flour massacres.
From last February to October, Callamard said, "Dr. Abu Safiya was the go-to source for human rights and humanitarian organizations investigating the situation of the healthcare sector in north Gaza and the impact of the mixture of disease and hunger on children in particular, providing accurate, nonsensationalist, and credible information, coordinating with international health organizations, providing media briefings, all whilst obviously working as a dedicated pediatrician."
The human rights leader further emphasized that the IDF's unsubstantiated allegations about the hospital director and Hamas are relatively recent. She asserted that "Dr. Abu Safiya's unlawful detention is emblematic of the broader attacks on the healthcare sector in Gaza and Israel's attempts to annihilate it. It is part and parcel of Israel's genocidal intent and genocidal acts—meant to inflict conditions of life CALCULATED TO BRING ABOUT DESTRUCTION OF PALESTINIANS."
"Dr. Abu Safiya has been acting as a leading voice for the healthcare sector in the north of Gaza since October 2024 and refusing to abandon the hospital and his patients," Callamard noted. "He has stood against Israel's genocidal act and his arrest along with that of [hundreds] of Palestinian medical staff further provides evidence of genocidal intent."
"None of the medical staff abducted by Israeli forces since November 2023 from Gaza during raids on hospitals and clinics has been charged or put before a trial; those released after enduring unimaginable torture were never charged and did not stand trial," she added. "Those still detained remain held without charges or trial under inhumane conditions and at risk of torture."
According to PHRI, "Since October 2023, Israel has arrested thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, including 230 doctors."
"The whereabouts and fate of many remain unknown, and requests for their location remain unanswered for many months," the group said Thursday. "In some cases, only thanks to the persistence of human rights organizations, information has been provided regarding the whereabouts of some of the missing. In some cases, it was revealed that the missing individuals died while in military or prison service custody."
Drop Site Newsreported Friday that the IDF ordered the "evacuation of al-Awda Hospital in north Gaza, warning that those who remain by 3:00 pm will face death or bombing," and pointed out that "around 65 healthcare workers and 30 patients are currently at the hospital."
In a Friday statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the United States, demanded action from the U.S. government, which has given Israel billions of dollars in weapons support as it has waged an assault on Gaza that's led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
"The Biden administration, which is a full partner in Israel's genocide, must act to secure the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and to end the far-right Israeli government's systematic assault on hospitals and medical personnel in Gaza," said CAIR. "Israeli attacks on medical facilities, its daily slaughter of Palestinian civilians, and its forced starvation of an entire population are clearly part of the overall genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza."
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'Not Sick Enough Yet': Report Details Harms of Florida Abortion Ban
For one patient, doctors "had to wait for her creatinine to bump and her kidneys to be about to fail" before they could even offer her abortion care.
Sep 17, 2024
As new reporting on Amber Nicole Thurman's death highlights the dangers of Georgia Republicans' six-week abortion ban, a human rights group on Tuesday released a research brief about how a similar policy in a neighboring state "harms the health and safety of Florida patients while obstructing clinicians from providing basic reproductive and maternal medical care."
The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) report, Delayed and Denied: How Florida's Abortion Ban Criminalizes Medical Care, focuses on the prohibition that was signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last year but didn't take effect until May, following a state Supreme Court ruling.
The PHR brief follows late May reporting on how wait times soared at abortion clinics in the states closest to Florida after its ban took effect and the Guttmacher Institute's findings from last week that the law led to a "substantial drop" in clinician-provided abortions across the state, in part because many people don't even know they are pregnant until after six weeks.
"Florida clinicians shared harrowing accounts of how routine medical care has been delayed, denied, and deviated from standards of care."
This summer, PHR interviewed 25 of Florida's reproductive healthcare providers about their experiences caring for pregnant patients under the six-week ban. Brief co-author Dr. Michele Heisler said in a Tuesday statement that "Florida clinicians shared harrowing accounts of how routine medical care has been delayed, denied, and deviated from standards of care."
"Not only abortion care but miscarriage and broader maternal healthcare have suffered gravely due to the state's ban," noted Heisler, PHR's medical director and a professor of internal medicine and public health at the University of Michigan.
"Our research brief sheds new light on the health and rights crisis fueled by Florida's abortion ban—on patients, providers, and the medical system as a whole," she said. "Under the state's abortion ban, Floridians have lost their reproductive autonomy."
One Florida doctor in private practice told PHR that "with the six-week ban, I would say it is more like the inability to really offer anything at all now. I mean, we see patients for their new obstetrician-gynecologist visits usually around eight weeks, and sometimes we see them earlier, if they are having bleeding or other issues where we end up scanning them earlier."
"But I do not think I have ever had a viable pregnancy that was less than six weeks that I could offer a termination," the OB-GYN said. "They are never less than six weeks, so it is essentially impossible. By the time we see them for their first visit, that option is already gone."
Florida's ban technically allows some abortions after six weeks—in cases of rape and incest, or to protect the health of the pregnant person—though medical professionals and reproductive rights advocates often point out that many patients are still denied legal care even with the limited "exceptions" in place.
Before the current law, Floridians were living under a 15-week ban, which took effect in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority reversingRoe v. Wade with its June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling.
One doctor who spoke with PHR recalled a story from that period: "I strongly remember a patient who had severe kidney disease and was admitted to the hospital and was teetering on the edge of that 15 weeks. I think she was 14 weeks or so, and she got admitted, and we were trying to figure out how best to help her. She was getting sicker and sicker."
"[We] had to bring it to the head people of the hospital and be like, 'What are we allowed to do?' And they were like, 'She is not sick enough yet.' And we had to wait for her to get sicker before we were even allowed to offer her termination. And she was past 15 weeks at that point," the OB-GYN explained.
"I think it took over two weeks for us to get an answer from the hospital administrators," the doctor added. "So that hit very strongly, because it was kind of insane that we had to wait for her to become sicker. We had to wait for her creatinine to bump and her kidneys to be about to fail before we were allowed to even offer her [termination]. Then we had to jump through so many hoops to be able to do it. It really changed everything that we did in our practice."
The report features several other stories of patient and provider frustrations and the dangers created by the six-week ban.
"The findings of PHR's research brief demonstrate the need to remove Florida's extreme abortion ban and restore access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare in the state," argued Payal Shah, brief co-author and the group's director of advocacy, legal, and research. "Both patients and providers are trapped in an unworkable legal landscape."
"Despite state health agency statements to the contrary, the state's abortion ban is an egregious intrusion on patient autonomy that is causing medical harm," Shah added. "The ban's criminal penalties and narrow, vague exceptions have compelled clinicians to deviate from established standards of care and medical ethics. These impacts constitute violations of Floridians' human rights."
Florida voters will soon have an opportunity to restore much broader access to abortion care. This November, they can vote "yes" on Amendment 4, a state constitutional amendment backed by Floridians Protecting Freedom that would enshrine the right to abortion before viability in Florida.
Former President Donald Trump, a Florida resident and the Republican nominee facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the battle for the White House, confirmed last month that he plans to vote "no" on the ballot measure. In response, Harris said that "I trust women to make their own healthcare decisions and believe the government should never come between a woman and her doctor... The choice in this election is clear."
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WHO Chief Demands Swift Medical Evacuations for 9,000 Injured, Sick Patients in Gaza
Israel is currently attempting to send several patients back to the besieged enclave from East Jerusalem, where they have been receiving cancer treatment.
Mar 30, 2024
The head of the World Health Organization on Saturday demanded that Israel speed up approvals for medical evacuations from Gaza as the number of people who urgently need life-saving healthcare reached roughly 9,000—and as Israeli officials threatened to send several Palestinian patients back to the besieged enclave from the East Jerusalem hospital where they've received cancer treatment.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, warned that with only 10 of Gaza's 36 hospitals "minimally functional" following repeated attacks on the enclave's healthcare system, "thousands of patients continue to be deprived of healthcare."
At the beginning of March, WHO assessed that about 8,000 patients needed to be immediately evacuated from Gaza to receive treatment for cancer, kidney failure, and other chronic diseases as well as injuries from Israel's relentless bombing of civilian infrastructure.
That number has grown by about 1,000 in recent weeks, Tedros said.
More than 3,400 sick and injured people have been taken abroad via the southern border town of Rafah since Israel began its bombardment on October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
"But many more need to be evacuated," said Tedros. "We urge Israel to speed up approvals for evacuations, so that critical patients can be treated. Every moment matters."
As Tedros called on Israel to swiftly approve medical evacuations, human rights advocates condemned Israeli authorities who aim to deport patients with cancer back to Gaza from an East Jerusalem hospital where they've been receiving advanced treatment since before the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
"Returning residents to Gaza during a military conflict and a humanitarian crisis is against international law and poses a deliberate risk to innocent lives," Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said in a statement. "All the more so when it concerns patients who may face a death sentence due to unsanitary conditions and hunger, along with the unlikely availability of medical care."
At least 22 patients from Gaza, including several children, have been receiving treatment at Augusta Victoria Hospital, having received authorization from Israel prior to the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) current escalation.
"I arrived here in Jerusalem with my son Hamza on September 27 last year," Qamar Abu Zoar toldThe Guardian on Saturday. "Hamza, who is four and a half years old, has a brain tumor and needs treatment that he couldn't receive in Gaza. While we were here, the war broke out. And since then, we have been stranded in this hospital, while my other two younger children are in the north of Gaza with my husband."
The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which oversees civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, has urged hospital officials to provide a list of patients who could be sent back to Gaza, where patients in the remaining hospitals are suffering from infections due to the use of improvised and unsterilized medical equipment, as well as from worsening malnutrition.
Israel's near-total blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza has affected food and medicines, and CNN reported earlier this month that anesthetics, anesthesia machines, oxygen tanks, and ventilators are frequently rejected by Israeli inspectors who examine aid trucks.
Last week, the Israeli High Court of Justice halted an effort by COGAT to send 10 patients from Augusta Victoria Hospital back to Gaza, where in many cases their homes and hometowns have been decimated by Israeli bombing and shelling.
COGAT claimed the patients had finished their treatment and said it would work with aid agencies if they had a need for more medical care, coordinating "their stay with the hospitals to safeguard their health."
But as Tedros warned Saturday, the vast majority of hospitals in Gaza are no longer operating.
Israel's High Court has until April 21 to issue a final ruling on whether officials can deport patients to Gaza.
"The hospitals and the medical staff must strongly oppose the release of the patients from their custody," said PHR, "unless a guarantee is given that they will not be returned to Gaza where their lives are in danger."
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